The pandemic era has not been easy on anyone. With the never-ending reliance on the internet, there has been a rapid, creative, and drastic evolution in cyber-attacks. Technological giants like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter were seen to be victimized by taking advantage of their vulnerabilities.

Recently almost 533 million Facebook user’s data were made publicly available in a darknet forum. The leaked data set was soon identified as not something new but the result of a data breach from 2019 which even included Mark Zuckerberg’s credentials. Facebook denied the allegation claiming that the data was scraped off from publicly available data and not a breach.

These multiple data breaches over the time point to the vulnerability of these platforms that allow hackers to delve into the personal data of a large number of people as in this case, of people from 160 nations.

Facebook made a public statement that the alleged feature no longer exists but as it looks the patchwork came in late. The social media giant has long been under scrutiny for handling the privacy of its users. Within the novel development, the authorities still have refrained from notifying the compromised individuals which is an alert to the insecure environment these platforms are building.

An online privacy group has come up with a mass legal action against Facebook. European Union’s lead regulator of technology giants, Irelands Data Protection Commission has launched an inquiry into the attack. Stating that it believed that one or more provisions of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and/or the Data Protection Act 2018 have been violated.

The Technological giants in their race for global acceptance, in turn, have also led to the growth of a vicious cyber pandemic. Be alert, prepared, and also educate before filling up your virtual personality as these are beyond the control of secure walls of likes and shares.

By Divya Alex (Content Writer, WCSF)