Facebook Marketplace data breach
From Breaches, in the HARD wiki · Updated
This article is about the October 2023 breach of Facebook Marketplace. For every breach, see Breaches.
The Facebook Marketplace data breach exposed 77,267 accounts from facebook.com in October 2023. The data taken includes passwords, names, email addresses and phone numbers and 2 more kinds of data.[1]
Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 22 Feb 2024, 5 months later. It is the 588th largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.
What was exposed
Facebook Marketplace’s breach included 6 kinds of data. What each lets criminals do:
| Data | What it’s used for |
|---|---|
| Passwords | Criminals try leaked passwords on email, banking and shopping sites, because people reuse them. |
| Names | Makes scam messages personal enough to believe. |
| Email addresses | Expect scam emails that name the company to look genuine. |
| Phone numbers | Expect scam texts and calls, and a higher risk of someone moving your number to their SIM. |
| Social media profiles | A way to reach you with scams. |
| Geographic locations | Roughly where you live. |
What to do
- Check whether you’re in it.Search your email address on Have I Been Pwned. It tells you which breaches it appears in, Facebook Marketplace among them, without showing the data.
- Change your Facebook Marketplace password.If the account still exists, sign in at Facebook Marketplace (facebook.com) and change it.
- Change it anywhere you used the same one.Start with your email, then banking and shopping. Leaked passwords are tried on other sites automatically, within days.
- Use a password manager and two-step sign-in.A different password for every site means one breach can’t open the rest. Two-step sign-in stops a leaked password working on its own.
- Distrust messages that mention Facebook Marketplace.Scammers use breach data to sound genuine. Don’t click links in emails or texts about the breach; go to the site yourself.
- Put a PIN on your phone account.Ask your mobile provider for a port-out PIN, so no one can move your number to their SIM.
Criminals use leaked details like these to make scam texts, emails and calls look real. How to spot the ones that follow a breach like this: Facebook Marketplace scams.
Timeline
- : the breach, as best it can be dated.
- : Have I Been Pwned verifies the data and adds it to its search, 5 months later.
Similar breaches
Breaches that leaked the same kinds of data, closest in time:
- RentoMojo, April 2023, 2.2 million accounts
- Fanpass, April 2022, 112,251 accounts
- Liker, March 2021, 465,141 accounts
- Wishbone (2020), January 2020, 9.7 million accounts
- Chatbooks, March 2020, 2.5 million accounts
- Ulmon, January 2020, 777,769 accounts
See Breaches for all 618, and Updates for keeping your devices patched.
References
- ^ Troy Hunt. “Facebook Marketplace”, Have I Been Pwned, added 22 Feb 2024. Breach data licensed CC BY 4.0.
External links
- Have I Been Pwned, to check your email address
- facebook.com, Facebook Marketplace’s website