Hacked data of more than 553 million Facebook users leaked online during the weekend, including names, dates of birth, a Facebook user’s relationship status, the city they live in, their workplace, and sometimes even email addresses. But perhaps the most sensitive data in the leak is the phone numbers, which are often used for two-factor authentication. And now there is a way to easily check if your phone number is in the leak, at least if you live in the US
The website The news every day has a simple tool that allows you to enter your phone number and see if it is in the leak. Gizmodo tested the tool against some data from the actual Facebook leak and found it to be correct. For example, we tested Mark Zuckerberg’s phone number, which is included in the leak. It worked. (We assume Zuck has since changed his phone number.)
All you need to do is enter your phone number without hyphens or periods. You must also include the international country code at the beginning. For example, if you are used to seeing your phone number in this form, 555-212-0000, you should remove the hyphens and put the digit ‘a’ in front of it.
If you use the same false number above, the number you enter should look like this: 15552120000. If you include a variation that is anything but the sequence of numbers, the tool will incorrectly tell you that your number is not in the leak included. In reality, it could very well be.
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Facebook hasn’t said much about the leak, accept the info was hacked in 2019. The data was offered on hacking forums for a price two years ago, but what makes this weekend’s leak different is that the data has now been leaked for free. Anyone can find the 16 GB of data with a simple Google search.