In early April of 2021, a large quantity of stolen Facebook user data was uploaded to a popular hacker forum.X Although the stolen data wasn’t available to most until 2021, the breach actually occurred back in 2019. Are you worried your information was leaked to hackers? This wikiHow teaches you how to find out if your information was leaked in the Facebook 2019 security breach.
Steps
1Check https://haveibeenpwned.com/. This is a well-known website that lets you search for your information in a variety of data breaches. Since both phone numbers and email addresses were compromised in the breach, you should search for both your phone number and email address in the form.To search, type your email address or phone number (you’ll need to search each separately) and click the pwned? button. This returns a list of all breaches on which your data appears.Scroll down and look for Facebook. If you see a Facebook entry that says your data was breached in 2019, your information was a part of the breach.Be sure to search for any and all email addresses and phone numbers connected to your Facebook account.
2Search for your info on https://www.haveibeenzucked.com. This is another site that hosts a searchable database containing information about breaches, however, it focuses only on the 2019 Facebook breach.X The layout of this site is a little less straight-forward than the previous, so here’s a quick guide:Click the drop-down menu that says PHONE NUMBER by default, and then choose the criteria you want to search by. You can search by phone number, email address, your full name, or your Facebook ID.Enter your search criteria into the white bar just above the black box on the page.The site is pretty picky about how you search by phone number. If entering your phone number, enter it with the country code first, followed by the phone number. For example, if you’re in the US or Canada, you’d enter 1, followed by your area code and phone number.Click the magnifying glass next to the typing area to search the database. If you see a message that says “You’ve been Zucked,” your personal information was found in the stolen information.
3Protect your Facebook account. If you’ve confirmed that your data was stolen in the breach, change your Facebook password immediately. You should also change your password on any other site you use it on. Also consider enabling two-factor authentication for your Facebook account.While both email addresses and phone numbers were harvested in the breach, the data mostly consists of phone numbers.X Because of this, make sure you search these databases for any phone numbers that are associated with your account as well as your email address.Even if your personal information was not a part of the breach, it’s important to set a secure password for Facebook, and make sure not to reuse it on any other site or service.
