Do you use Facebook? Consider that your personal information has been misused

Dear readers,

Here are the topics we'll be talking about this week:

• Do you use Facebook?

  Consider that your personal information has been misused

• Distance learning, the calamitous week

• The French reconnect with the telephone

• Yahoo!

  erase part of the web

Good reading,

Benjamin Ferran (capturedecrans@lefigaro.fr)

1. Do you use Facebook?

Consider that your personal information has been misused

With lip service, Facebook acknowledges the existence of a file containing information on 533 million of its users.

Facebook screenshot.

Data from 533 million Facebook users in 106 countries, leaked back to 2019, is being traded under the hood for free.

Among them, there are some 20 million French accounts.

Here is the information that can be contained about the users:

• the first and last names;

• date and place of birth;

• genre ;

• city ​​and country of residence;

• the profession ;

• the phone number and email associated with the account;

• marital status (single, in a relationship, married, etc.).

But no password, no private messages.

The context.

This file was created by hijacking for malicious purposes Facebook's contact search tool, which can find people in its directory on the social network or on Instagram.

Facebook therefore rejects the term "piracy", but plays a little with words.

According to the company, this data breach dates back to 2019, was already known, and the exploited flaw was corrected in August of that same year.

Anyway, move on, there's nothing new under sunny Menlo Park (Facebook's headquarters in Silicon Valley).

However, it seems that this large file is indeed new, according to this survey by

Wired

magazine

.

In any case, the 533 million people concerned have never been warned by Facebook of the leak of their data.

Good to know.

If this file does not include a password, the information it contains is far from worthless.

With an e-mail address and a date of birth, hackers can instigate effective phishing campaigns, and harvest even more valuable data (bank accounts, e-mail identifiers).

Therefore, as the Cnil said in a note published on Tuesday:

Watch out for messages that appear to come from your bank or insurance asking you to verify information or make a wire transfer.

If in doubt about a message received, it is preferable to directly contact an advisor from the establishment concerned.

Message from the Cnil

Caution.

There are sites that allow you to find out whether or not you are in this database, in particular HaveIBeenPwnd.com.

The Cnil's recommendation is more radical, and deserves to be read with attention:

Given the number of accounts affected (nearly one in two French users would be affected), if you had a Facebook account between 2016 and 2019, it is advisable to consider yourself to be affected by this data breach, without looking to check if this is indeed the case.

Message from the Cnil

Let us say it again: "

it is advisable to consider yourself as being affected by this leak

".

What applies here for Facebook applies to everything you do, say, write, share on the internet.

All this information is likely to one day be exposed, whatever the reason (personal error, hacking, malicious use).

Hence this other recommendation that I really like: be frugal on the web.

Only share information that is strictly necessary.

And use multiple email addresses when signing up for new services, to prevent hacking one account from cascading all the others.

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