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Personal Information Of 533 Million Facebook Users Leaked Online

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personal information of 533 million facebook users leaked online

It seems that Facebook’s data privacy issues won’t ever end. Security researcher Alon Gal has recently revealed that the personal information belonging to around 533 million Facebook users has been leaked online.

The massive dataset is currently being shared on various underground hacking forums for free, and it affects users from 106 countries including every country in the MENA region. At 32 million records, US Facebook users represent the greatest chunk of the dataset, followed by 11 million users from the UK, and 6 million users from India.

Besides user’s full names, the leak includes their phone numbers, Facebook IDs, locations, birthdates, bios, and sometimes even email addresses.

“So what’s the impact? For a targeted attack where you know someone’s name and country, it’s great for mobile phone lookup,” explains Troy Hunt, the creator of the Have I Been Pwned database. “But for spam based on using phone number alone, it’s gold. Not just SMS, there are heaps of services that just require a phone number these days, and now there’s hundreds of millions of them conveniently categorized by country with nice mail merge fields like name and gender.”

facebook users leaked data sample

Twitter: @UnderTheBreach

The stolen information actually comes from 2019, and cybercriminals had access to it for quite some time now through a Telegram bot, which makes it possible to look up a phone number and receive the corresponding user’s Facebook ID, and the other way around — all for a small fee.

Also Read: Exploits In Microsoft Exchange Used To Breach Over 30,000 Organizations

“This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019. We found and fixed this issue in August 2019,” said Liz Bourgeois, Facebook’s director of strategic response communications, in a Saturday tweet.

Old or not, the fact that the personal information of half a billion Facebook users is circulating around on the internet for free is the least the social media giant and its users need right now considering the number of new cybersecurity threats created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Hopefully, Facebook will take the steps necessary to minimize the impact of the breach and protect its users.

To find out whether or not your Facebook account data was among the leak, go to HaveIBeenPwned.com and enter the email address you use to login to Facebook with. If your email address is detected within the millions of accounts, HaveIBeenPwned will let you know.

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Dubai Residents Will Soon Travel Door To Door By Flying Car

Aviation firm Aviterra has signed a deal with Dutch company PAL-V to purchase over 100 Liberty flying cars.

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dubai residents will soon travel door to door by flying car
PAL-V

A Dubai-headquartered aviation company has signed an agreement with Dutch firm PAL-V to bring their groundbreaking flying cars to the Middle East.

Aviterra, a manufacturer of aviation and aerospace components, will purchase over 100 Liberty flying cars and directly invest in the European aviation company, they revealed in a recent joint statement.

At $799,000, the two-seat Liberty is a costly vehicle predominantly aimed at high-end, corporate, and government clients and individuals with very deep pockets. Described by PAL-V as a “personal aircraft for daily medium and long-distance commutes,” the Liberty combines a gyroplane and three-wheeled car with collapsable propellers and tail fins stored on the roof.

In car mode, the vehicle can reach 100 kph in under nine seconds and has a top speed of 160 kph. Changing into aircraft modes takes around five minutes, with the helicopter-like blades rising from the roof and the tail fins extending up and out from the rear. Finally, the car’s rear jacks up, and two hatches open to deploy the rear-facing propeller.

pal-v liberty flying car

As an aircraft, the Liberty has a range of between 400 and 500 km and a maximum speed of 180 kph. It can reach an altitude of 11,000 feet and requires a runway (or straight road) of at least 200 meters for both takeoff and landing.

The current batch of Liberty flying cars run on regular gasoline but will eventually be configured as EVs “once batteries get lighter”, according to Robert Dingemanse, CEO and founder of PAL-V.

Also Read: Abu Dhabi To Develop $1 Billion eSports Island Facility

Meanwhile, as both Abu Dhabi and Dubai continue to make strong commitments to air mobility, other companies are also keen to deploy flying cars in the Middle East. Slovakian firm KleinVision, for example, is developing a flying vehicle called the Aircar, powered by a BMW engine.

Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority recently signed agreements to use air taxis in the city in the next two years, while Abu Dhabi’s Investment Office has announced plans to introduce an all-electric air taxi fleet by 2026.

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