Have you noticed how those messages keep popping up on Facebook asking you to add more detail to your profile? It usually asks for information about your hometown, birth date, education, mobile number… but wait, stop right there! Turns out sharing your number on Facebook may not be such a good idea. By doing so, you make it possible for anyone to potentially find your name, picture and location by just typing the number in the search bar. This makes your profile a lot more vulnerable to hackers, once they have your digits.
This little loophole was discovered by software engineer Reza Moaiandin, who used a coding script to generate every possible combination of mobile numbers in the UK, US and Canada. He then ran these through a programmer to find out which were linked to people’s Facebook account. With just these two steps, he stumbled on a bulk of personal information about these people (depending on how much info was left for public viewing).
On his blog, Moaiandin writes, “This could be a huge phishing problem if no limit is created, and the loophole is discovered by the wrong person.” He goes on to add, “Unfortunately, for the 1.44 billion people currently using Facebook, this means that sophisticated hackers and black market sellers can access names and mobile phone numbers in as little as an hour through reverse engineering.
Last year’s RAND (Research And Development) Corporation report claimed that the cyber criminals’ black market had become even more profitable than the illegal drug trade, selling such private information from social networking sites. The report went on to say how Twitter and Facebook accounts are now more profitable than stolen credit cards.
How to safeguard yourself from this?
Facebook’s privacy settings has an option called “Who can look me up?”. Within this category there’s another option called “Who can look you up using the phone number you have provided?”. Once you add in your number on Facebook, it automatically ticks this option to “public”. That means, anyone who has your number can put it in the search bar and your profile will be accessible to them.
To avoid falling prey to such stalkers and hackers, go check your Settings right now, and change your visibility accordingly.
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