OREANDA-NEWS. The personal data of more than 267 million users of the social network Facebook were freely available on the Internet, said the British research company Comparitech. “A total of 267,140,436 accounts have leaked. Most affected users were from the United States”, the report said.

According to the company, the database contained names, phone numbers, and other user information. It was freely available for almost two weeks, and anyone could get information from it without a password. Experts believe that cybercriminals could use this data for mass mailing of SMS spam and phishing attacks. A study conducted in conjunction with independent security expert Bob Dyachenko states that the base was compiled by hackers from Vietnam.

In November, American cybersecurity expert Vinnie Troy discovered a database with information about 1.2 billion social network users. According to him, there were no passwords, bank card numbers or security codes, but information was collected from user profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the service for posting and developing Github IT projects.