The app developers at Facebook exposed hundreds of millions of users records on public cloud servers, said a team of researchers at the security firm UpGuard. The researchers find two data sets of which 146GB of data set containing information of 540 million users including their Facebook activity, account names and IDs came from Cultura Colectiva, a Mexican media company.
An identical data set was also found for an app called ‘At the Pool’ that stored personal information, including 22,000 passwords apparently used for the app.
While both the data sets were found on Amazon cloud servers, but, for how long, the two data sets were exposed is still yet unknown. Facebook has now removed the data.
‘Facebook’s policies prohibit storing Facebook information in a public database. Once alerted to the issue, we worked with Amazon to take down the databases. We are committed to working with the developers on our platform to protect people’s data,’ said a Facebook spokesperson.
The social media giant has been facing intense criticism over the handling of user data since the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The company has since then started removing apps with access to user data.
Earlier this year, Facebook’s Chief Financial Officer David Wehner has announced to roll out a ‘Clear History’ tool, which will wipe out all the details social media platform collects for a user from third-party apps and websites.
Once introduced, the Clear History tool will help Facebook regain its trust in users following the back to back data breaches.
