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Hackers gain access to 120 miilion Facebook users' private messages: Report

WION Web Team
New Delhi, Delhi, IndiaUpdated: Nov 03, 2018, 07:31 PM IST
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File photo. Photograph:(Others)

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Most of the users are based in Ukraine and Russia but some were also from the UK, US, Brazil and elsewhere, the report said on Friday.

Several users' details have been compromised after hackers gained access to their private messages, the BBC reported. 

Most of the users are based in Ukraine and Russia but some were also from the UK, US, Brazil and elsewhere, the report said on Friday.

Nearly 120 million Facebook accounts have been hacked and they published messages from 81,000 accounts for generating money.

The breach was first discovered in September and the messages were reportedly obtained through unnamed rogue browser extensions.

Facebook, however, commented that its systems were not breached as part of the hack.

"We have contacted browser-makers to ensure that known malicious extensions are no longer available to download in their stores," Guy Rose, Vice President of Product Management at Facebook, was quoted as saying.

"We have also contacted law enforcement and have worked with local authorities to remove the website that displayed information from Facebook accounts."

Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC), which is Facebook's lead privacy regulator in Europe, has opened a formal investigation into this data breach that could result in a fine of $1.63 billion.