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Researcher discovered database of Facebook users' phone numbers online

A cybersecurity researcher discovered an exposed server online containing more than 419 million records linked to Facebook Inc. accounts, TechCrunch.com reported Sept. 4.

The database, which was not password-protected, included 133 million records on Facebook users in the U.S., 18 million linked to U.K. users, and more than 50 million linked to users in Vietnam. Each record contained a user's unique Facebook ID and associated phone number, with some records also including the user's personal information. The database has since been taken offline.

A Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch that the data set is already old and had been scraped before the company removed a feature that allows people to search for other users by their phone number and email address.

The data exposure is the latest privacy breach involving Facebook. The social media giant in 2018 admitted that the now-defunct data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica LLC had improperly accessed millions of users' personal data.

Facebook is also being probed in Germany for transcribing audio recordings from users of its Messenger app.