Facebook is a Phone Book in the Latest Breach

As if last years analytic nightmare wasn't enough for Facebook to handle, they find themselves in the news again.

The past came back with a vengeance this week when the social media giant admitted a  breach left millions of phone numbers linked to the company’s social media accounts visible online in an unprotected database. According to CNN, some of the records also listed the user’s name, gender and location by country.  The databases have since been taken down.

Until the spring of 2018, Facebook users could enter another person's phone number to find them on the social media site. The company then shut down the feature in the weeks after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke last year. "This dataset is old and appears to have information obtained before we made changes last year to remove people's ability to find others using their phone numbers," said a Facebook spokesoperson. "The dataset has been taken down and we have seen no evidence that Facebook accounts were compromised."

Although it's 18 months since the shut down by Facebook of the feature, it was only this week that is was reported that a security researcher had found the records of more than 400 million Facebook accounts.

Facebook has not indicated whether those  impacted  by the breach will be contacted.