The US tech giant, Facebook — a so-called relaying platform where we express our thoughts, feelings and sometimes, very personal things. This is happening not for the first time, but yet again. Reports of data breach are doing rounds over the internet. According to these reports, data of more than 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries has been leaked online, or you may say exposed. This includes over 32 million records of users in the US, 11 million on users in the UK and six million on users from India. This data reportedly consists of personal information such as phone number, Facebook ID, full name, location, birthdate, bio and email address.
Now, the question that arises here is whether our data has been exposed or not. How can one secure our details? To answer these questions, we are here with two simple steps that you can follow to check out if your data is also at risk.
A popular website called Have I Been Pwned can help you find out if your data has been exposed in an online infringement. To use this, you need to visit the website and type your email address that you wish to check for breaches, and press the Pwned button on the right side. That’s it. The website will check its reference with more than 10 billion accounts that have been compromised in any infringement in the past.
A green page that says ‘Good News’ implies your account is safe, The website then offers you information on how to increase security. On the flip side, if a red screen appears, displaying ‘Oh no- pwned!!’, then it means your precious information has been exposed on the internet.
Moreover, this website will also let you know the places where your information has been posted on publically facing websites. According to The Verge, Troy Hunt, owner of the Have I Been Pwned database, said on Saturday, “I haven’t seen anything yet to suggest that this breach isn’t legit.” In the data, he found only about 2.5 million unique email addresses (which is still a lot!), but apparently, “the greatest impact here is the phone numbers.”
PS: I am not an expert on cybersecurity and the information provided here is just for educational purposes. Please apply your logic and sense before jumping into anything.
Thanks, readers.
(Much many love you, readers)