Use a password manager, two-factor authentication, and keep on guard against phishing attacks if your data was publicly revealed.
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In early April, safety specialists made public the details of yet another Facebook data breach, this one affecting more than half a billion consumers. As initially reported by Business Insider, personal information on 533 million Facebook users spanning 106 countries surfaced at a hacking forum, together with documents including email addresses, telephone numbers, full names, locations, birthdays, and relationship statuses. This data traces back to some vulnerability fixed by Facebook in 2019, which enabled the scraping of profiles.
If you are included in that data collection, you will want to shield yourself later on. The very first step is to assess whether you’re a part of this breach.
One of the most famous sites tracking major data breaches is Have I Been Pwned, that has the confidence of many security specialists and government agencies across the globe. Its premise is simple: You enter your email address into its lookup tool to learn which breaches you’ve been in and the extent of the data leaked.
For this hottest Facebook breach, site owner Troy Hunt added the ability to search by telephone number as well, which was previously an unsupported feature. (Having difficulty getting it to function? Read these detailed instructions on Hunt’s blog.) Try out both your email address and your telephone number when performing a search–the kind of information divulged by the breach changes for each profile. Assessing your data Have I Been Pwned will also reveal any other breaches you have been exposed in.
If you realize that you’re a part of this information dump (or others), the following steps should be to alter any copy or weak passwords. It is possible to easily manage particular, strong passwords using a password manager such as Lastpass or Bitwarden. Look at adding two-factor authentication into accounts and taking further steps like creating a separate email address for password retrieval , also. Finally, be on guard for any phishing attempts using this information trying to gain your trust.
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