As reported by zimo.hr, hackers managed to get a data base with phone numbers of Facebook users and are now trying to cash them in using a bot on the chat app Telegram. After an announcement that WhatsApp would change terms of use, Telegram has significantly improved its position on the list of downloaded apps and increased the number of users.

As media report, a security breach was discovered by a cyber security expert, Alon Gal, and it warns that a person managing the bot claims that they have information about 533 million Facebook users.

This bot has been in use since January 21, when Gal posted screenshots from Telegram on his Twitter profile.

It is still not clear whether anyone contacted Telegram regarding this issue, demanding the bot to be removed and banned from its platform. Regardless of Telegram’s reaction, all the data will still be available somewhere on the Web or the Dark Web.

This is not the only ongoing problem with the misuse of user data, as confirmed by a decision of Norway’s data protection agency, which announced that it would fine the dating app Grindr with 100 million Norwegian kroner (9.6 million euros) for illegal publication of user data to advertisers.

In regard to the announced change of the use policy for the messenger app WhatsApp, in the first three weeks of January, the message exchange platform Signal won 7.5 million new users worldwide, and Telegram 25 million, whereas WhatsApp fell from the 8^th to the 23^rd place of the most downloaded apps in the UK on January 12, the Guardian reports.

Source: zimo.hr