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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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Abu Dhabi’s Robot Kitchen Is Serving Up Biryani, Not Burgers

Circus SE wants to put a tiny automated factory inside the buildings where Gulf residents live and work, bypassing part of last-mile delivery.

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abu dhabi's robot kitchen is serving up biryani not burgers
Circus SE

The most telling thing about a new autonomous kitchen now running in Abu Dhabi’s Marina Square is what it won’t cook:

“We don’t do fast food,” says Nikolas Bullwinkel, Founder and CEO of Circus SE. “We’ve actively decided not to build a machine that can only do burgers”.

Instead, the CA-1 system is built around pot-based cooking: curries, pastas, soups and rice dishes. After experimenting with highly personalized recipes, Circus deliberately leaned back toward recognizable food. “We’re going with a chicken biryani because you know it,” Bullwinkel says of the AED 40 dish.

circus se ca-1 robot system

The Germany-based robotics and food technology company operates across eight countries, and Abu Dhabi is its first deployment outside Europe. More locations are expected there and in Dubai.

In Germany, its units can be placed in supermarkets, gas stations, airports and hospitals. In the Gulf, Bullwinkel wants them inside residential and office buildings, replacing some of the complexity of last-mile delivery. “We’re basically bringing a very tiny factory a few square meters into your building,” he says. Catering company Royal Prestige supplies the ingredients and knowledge of local tastes.

The CA-1 manages up to 36 refrigerated ingredient silos alongside automated induction cooking, robotic plating and a self-cleaning dishwasher. Two robotic arms move ingredients through the system with minimal human intervention. It can produce up to 120 hot meals an hour, and a meal such as rice and curry can take around three to four minutes.

Also Read: Ooredoo Qatar’s 5G+ Network Is Built For Machines As Much As People

Five cameras and multiple sensors monitor heat, temperature and consistency, an attempt to approximate what a chef perceives. “You can hear something gets burned, you can smell it, you can see it at some point,” Bullwinkel says. CircusOS, the company’s operating system, adjusts recipes in real time.

You might think of the platform as a threat to kitchen staff, but Bullwinkel frames Circus as a way for chefs to develop recipes and distribute them at scale. With that being said, rising labor costs and shortages are also part of his case for automation.

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