Where Users’ Facebook Data May Have Been Compromised

Source: Statista

Facebook has disclosed that it believes that up to 87 million people may have had their data improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. That’s far more than previously believed with whistleblower Christopher Wylie earlier putting the number at approximately 50 million. Commenting on the situation, Mark Zuckerberg said that “clearly we should have done more and we will going forward”. The Facebook boss also said that he previously assumed that when Facebook provided people with tools, it was their own responsibility about how to use them”. He has now said that holding such a view was “wrong in retrospect”.

The following infographic is based on Facebook’s blog post where it acknowledged just many users may have been compromised. It is important to note that the company doesn’t know precisely what data was shared or exactly how many people were impacted so the figures serve as its best estimate. 81.6 percent of the estimated 87 million people impacted are likely to be in the United States. That could mean that 70.6 million Americans have had their data compromised. Other countries on Facebook’s list include The Philippines, Indonesia and the UK, all of whom could have over a million compromised users.

Facebook Infographic

Latest Yahoo Hack Is the Largest Data Breach To Date

More than one billion Yahoo accounts were affected by a recently discovered data breach dating back to 2013. The incident, which Yahoo informed the public of on Wednesday, is likely distinct from the one the company had disclosed in September, meaning that Yahoo has fallen victim to the two largest (known) data breaches to date. The data stolen in the latest incident may involve names, email addresses, telephone numbers and encrypted passwords. Clear text passwords, credit card or bank account data have apparently not been compromised. However, affected users are urged to change their passwords and review their online accounts for suspicious activity.

Data breaches like the one at Yahoo have become increasingly common over the past years and are often uncovered when the stolen data is offered for sale on the darknet. As our chart illustrates, many high-profile companies have been subject to hacker attacks recently and they probably won’t be the last. Security experts strongly recommend not using the same password across several websites. Using different passwords significantly limits the potential damage an exposed password could entail.

This chart shows how many data records were compromised in selected hacking attacks.

Infographic: Latest Yahoo Hack Is the Largest Data Breach To Date | Statista
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