Facebook was yesterday branded the “poster child for mistrust” after it was rocked by yet another data scandal.
The cyber giant was slammed after more than 419 million records of Facebook users were found on an online database.
The information – including 18 million records of UK users – included people’s Facebook IDs and phone numbers.
The fear is the information could, if accessed by crooks, be used to commit fraud, although there is no evidence that it was.
Several databases were found online by the website TechCrunch.
It said that, because they were not password protected, anyone could have got into them.
Experts said the latest Facebook security lapse could have exposed users to danger online.
Paul Bischoff, privacy advocate at Comparitech.com, said: “The exposure of this database puts millions of Facebook users at risk of spam, harassment and SIM swap fraud.”
Others said it raised wider questions about Facebook.
James Fisher, of data firm Qlik, said that Facebook acts “as the poster child for mistrust in the use of data”.
Sam Curry, chief security officer at tech firm Cybereason, said: “Users should be holding the company accountable about getting serious about privacy.”
Facebook said the databases revealed this week were “old” and “appear to have information obtained before we made changes last year to remove people’s ability to find others using their phone numbers.
“We have seen no evidence that accounts were compromised.”
The exposure is the latest security lapse to rock Facebook, run by billionaire founder Mark Zuckerberg.
The firm is still reeling from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where 80 million profiles were “scraped” to help identify swing voters in the 2016 US Presidential election.
Kate Bevan, computing editor at Which?, said: “If you’ve uploaded your phone number to Facebook at any point, it’s worth being extra-vigilant about calls claiming that your computer has been compromised.”
