Amid global outage of Facebook along with its associated platforms, WhatsApp and Instagram, the data of its over 1.5 Billion users are now being sold in the dark web.
According to a report by Sputnik News, the data are being sold on a Hacker Forum.
In late September, an announcement was posted on a hacking forum that claimed to have the name, email, phone number, location, gender, and user ID of 1.5 billion Facebook users.
“One prospective buyer has allegedly been quoted at $5,000 per 1 million Facebook accounts.
“This would value the entire set of Facebook user data at $7.5 million.
“In a subsequent post, the seller alleges to represented a large company that works to scrape Facebook for data”.
WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook are currently down globally.
The issue could possibly be an outcome of servers being affected.
Since 4:40p.m, checks by DAILY GIST shows all three social media platformed were ceased to work.
A visit on Facebook website shows error as the browser refuses to connect.
WhatsApp did not show new content, including any messages sent or received during the problems.
The apps which are all owned by Facebook have stopped letting users load fresh content, send or receive messages or perform any other actions on the apps.
Several users on Monday evening complained that servers of WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram are down.
Following the development, Users worldwide have taken to their Twitter handles to share their views on this issue.
However WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram have issued statements on the development.
“We’re aware that some people are experiencing issues with WhatsApp at the moment. We’re working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible.”
Facebook’s Andy Stone in a tweet said that “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
Instagram also issued an apology:
“Instagram and friends are having a little bit of a hard time right now, and you may be having issues using them. Bear with us, we’re on it!”
An official clarification over the cause behind this global outage is awaited.
