Posting Phone Numbers on Facebook Helps Criminals "Harvest" Personal Details

Facebook has been the largely used social networking site across the globe. Though Facebook has fetched beneficial use to the users, it is accompanied with a lot of security defects which could affect the users in a great way.

Users tend to update their Facebook profile with all the details. However, recent investigations prove that there a lot of security loopholes with Facebook and updating details such as phone numbers could be detrimental.

The phone numbers accompanied with the user's name could help cyber criminals misuse the same. Reza Moaiandin, technical director of Salt agency, used a coding script to generate every possible number combination in Britain, US and Canada. He then sent millions of numbers to Facebook app building programme in bulk. In return, he received millions of unobstructed personal profiles.

Reza Moaiandin said, "With this security loophole, a person with the right knowledge can harvest the non private details of the users who allow public access to their phone numbers, enabling the harvester to then use or sell the user details for purposes that the user may not be happy with, " reported Daily Mail.

In a report, RAND said, - pictures, names, phone numbers, education history and locations can be sold on a network of illegal trading sites. Twitter and Facebook accounts are now more profitable than stolen credit cards.