12 Crore Facebook Private Messages On For Sale – Rs 7.2 Per Private Message Is The Price!

Hackers have now decided to penetrate the private messages of Facebook users, and the hack has already started.

As per an investigation by BBC, 120 million Facebook users’ private messages have been hacked, and snatched from them.

Wondering what is the price of such private message? It’s 10 cents of Rs 7.2 per private message.

Before you make any more guesses, let us put this straight: Facebook has really no role in this hack. The culprit is that harmless looking browser extension on your Chrome/Firefox/IE browser.

What Is The Hack Exactly?

This massive hack of private conversations of Facebook users emerged in September, when a person with nickname FBSaler posted a thread on an Internet forum, claiming: “We sell personal information of Facebook users. Our database includes 120 million accounts,”

BBC commissioned cyber-security company Digital Shadows to investigate this claim, and to their surprise, found that the user has already put private Facebook chats of 81,000 users as ‘sample’ of their database.

It seems that the majority of the hack happened with Russian and Ukrainian users, but there are instances of UK, US, Brazil users as well. And maybe from other countries too.

What These Hacked Chats Contain?

BBC and Digital Shadows actually contacted 5 of the Russian Facebook users whose private messages were dumped as ‘sample’ online, and they have confirmed that indeed, these are real Facebook private chats.

First confirmed chat was about images from a holiday.

Second confirmed chat was about a recent Depeche Mode concert.

Third confirmed chat was about complaints about son-in-law (wonder what will happen when that son-in-law knows about this chat)

Fourth confirmed chat was between two lovers.

Infact, 176,000 other accounts were also made available as sample by the hackers, but as per BBC’s hunch, these were account details of those profiles who haven’t kept their profile private. Only email address, name were made available for them.

Each private chat was made available for 10 cents or Rs 7.2, as per BBC.

Is Facebook Involved?

Fortunately for Facebook, they don’t have any role in this hack.

As per the investigation by BBC, these users had installed browser extensions which allegedly stole information when they opened Facebook, and sent to the hackers.

Facebook has not revealed which browser extensions were involved, or which browsers were used. Chrome, Opera, Firefox are the most used web browsers besides Safari (Apple users) and Internet Explorer (Windows users).

Facebook executive Guy Rosen said, “We have contacted browser-makers to ensure that known malicious extensions are no longer available to download in their stores,”

We will keep you updated, as more details come in.

Related:

5 Crore Facebook Accounts Hacked – 6 Facts Every Social Media User Should Know!

What’s Wrong With Facebook? Things You Actually Need To Know!

Govt. Of India Warns Zuckerberg Over Data Abuse; WhatsApp Co-Founder Says #DeleteFacebook!