Meta

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined Meta €265 million ($275.5 million) for the data leak that Facebook experienced in 2021 which exposed the data of millions of Facebook users.

In a hacker forum, a user posted the phone numbers and personal information of 533 million Facebook users for free online.

Alon Gal, the CTO of the cyber intelligence company Hudson Rock, broke the news about the data's accessibility first.

After learning about the data loss, the Irish DPC immediately began looking into any GDPR violations by Meta.

Threat actors used a vulnerability that was addressed in 2019 to scrape data from the social network to gather the data.

Source: https://securityaffairs.com/139063/laws-and-regulations/irish-dpc-fines-meta-data-scraping.html

TPRM report: https://scoringcyber.rankiteo.com/company/meta

"id": "met210151023",
"linkid": "meta",
"type": "Data Leak",
"date": "11/2021",
"severity": "85",
"impact": "4",
"explanation": "Attack with significant impact with customers data leaks"

{'affected_entities': [{'customers_affected': '533 million',
                        'industry': 'Technology',
                        'location': 'Global',
                        'name': 'Meta (Facebook)',
                        'type': 'Social Media Company'}],
 'attack_vector': 'Data Scraping',
 'data_breach': {'data_exfiltration': True,
                 'number_of_records_exposed': '533 million',
                 'personally_identifiable_information': True,
                 'type_of_data_compromised': ['Phone numbers',
                                              'Personal information']},
 'date_detected': '2021',
 'description': 'The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined Meta '
                '€265 million ($275.5 million) for the data leak that Facebook '
                'experienced in 2021 which exposed the data of millions of '
                'Facebook users. In a hacker forum, a user posted the phone '
                'numbers and personal information of 533 million Facebook '
                'users for free online. Alon Gal, the CTO of the cyber '
                'intelligence company Hudson Rock, broke the news about the '
                "data's accessibility first. After learning about the data "
                'loss, the Irish DPC immediately began looking into any GDPR '
                'violations by Meta. Threat actors used a vulnerability that '
                'was addressed in 2019 to scrape data from the social network '
                'to gather the data.',
 'impact': {'data_compromised': 'Phone numbers and personal information',
            'financial_loss': '€265 million ($275.5 million)'},
 'references': [{'source': 'Hudson Rock'}],
 'regulatory_compliance': {'fines_imposed': '€265 million ($275.5 million)',
                           'regulations_violated': 'GDPR'},
 'title': 'Facebook Data Leak 2021',
 'type': 'Data Breach',
 'vulnerability_exploited': 'Vulnerability addressed in 2019'}