Nearly 500 million Facebook users' phone numbers up for sale via Telegram bot.

Cybersecurity researcher Alon Gal found 533 million users' Facebook data were found online and the data was on sale via Telegram.

Cybersecurity researcher Alon Gal found 533 million users' Facebook data were found online and the data was on sale via Telegram.On January 14, Alon Gal, a security researcher, reported a data breach on his Twitter account. He tweeted that 533 million users' Facebook data were found online, and around 6 lakh Indian FB users' data was breached in early 2020. He also tweeted, "a user created a Telegram bot allowing users to query the database for a low fee, enabling people to find the phone numbers linked to a very large portion of Facebook accounts." Following that, he released the list of affected countries on his Twitter account.

A Motherboard explained that "The bot allows someone to do two things: if they have a person’s Facebook user ID, they can find that person’s phone number, and if they have a person’s phone number, they can find their Facebook user ID. Though, of course, actually getting access to the information you're looking for costs money — unlocking a piece of information, like a phone number or Facebook ID, costs one credit, which the person behind the bot is selling for $20. There’s also bulk pricing available, with 10,000 credits selling for $5,000."

Gal further said that the bot has been running since at least January 12, 2021, but the data it provides access to is from 2019. Gal speaking to Motherboard, said, "It is very worrying to see a database of that size being sold in cybercrime communities. It harms our privacy severely and will certainly be used for smishing and other fraudulent activities by bad actors."