According to a recent report by Motherboardlink,a security researcher Alon Gal found out that someone has gotten theirhands on a database of Facebook user’s phone numbers and is selling it viaa Telegram bot.

Gal claims that the person has access to a database with information on 533million users which came from a Facebook vulnerability exposed and patchedin 2019.

Databases are usually encrypted and to fish out useful information, therehas to be an interaction between the person with the database and theperson trying to get information out of it. However, making a Telegram botand using it to dig out data solves this problem. The person in possessionof the database knew this.

The bot is capable of doing two things:

1. It can find that person’s phone number using his/her Facebook ID. 2. It can find the person’s Facebook ID using his/her phone number.

The Motherboard report further details that accessing information like aphone number or Facebook ID, costs one credit. The person behind the bot isselling one piece of information for $20. However, bulk prices such as10,000 credits selling for $5,000 are also available.

The bot came into action on January 12, 2021, but the information beingprovided is two years old. Nevertheless, this is embarrassing for Facebooksince the numbers collected were for two-factor authentication.

Gal has contacted Telegram to take the bot down. However, no response hasbeen received from the other end, yet.