Facebook torrent reveals personal data of over 100 million people

A torrent posted on BitTorrent Search Engines has revealed the identification of users after over 100 million peoples’ profiles were scanned and mined for personal data, and compiled into database form.

And it’s not just a proof of concept attack. Big companies, such as Apple, AT&T, HP and Intel just to name a few are accessing that leaked data, most likely for advertisement and “research” purposes.

This would have to be one of the biggest security threats in Facebook history, as the data also contained addresses, phone numbers and names that could reveal the locations and whereabouts of these users. Some of these companies that are most likely to exploit this data are:

A.C. Nielsen

Agilent Technologies

Apple

Grumman

AT&T / Macrovision

Baker & McKenzie

BBC

Bertelsmann Media

Boeing

Church of Scientology

Cisco Systems

Cox Enterprises

Davis Polk & Wardwel

Deutsche Telekom

Disney

Duracell

Ernst & Young

Fujitsu

Goldman

Sachs Halliburton

HBO & Company

Hilton Hospitality

Hitachi

HP

IBM

Intel

Intuit

Levi Strauss & Co.

Lockheed-Martin Corp

Lucasfilm

Lucent

Lucent Technologies

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co

Mcafee

MetLife

Mitsubishi

Motorola

Northrop

…and many others that readers can find over at the Gizmodo article.

It also raises the question of is Facebook doing enough to protect user data. With recent hacks exploiting flaws in the FaceBook API, could attacks like these become more popular and frequent? It’s a matter of time before another crippling flaw is found and exploited.

Via Gizmodo.