Indian-origin researcher discovers exposed database of 419 mn Facebook users

Agencies
September 6, 2019

San Francisco, Sept 6: Sanyam Jain, a security researcher and member at Hague-based non-profit organisation GDI Foundation, has discovered a massive database containing over 419 million phone numbers of Facebook users on an unsecured server which were available for anyone to access.

The database included 133 million records of US-based Facebook users, 18 million records of UK users and more than 50 million records of users in Vietnam, TechCrunch reported on Wednesday.

According to Jain, he found profiles with phone numbers associated with several celebrities.

"Jain... found the database and contacted TechCrunch after he was unable to find the owner. After a review of the data, neither could we. But after we contacted the web host, the database was pulled offline," said the report.

This latest data breach exposed millions of users' phone numbers just from their Facebook IDs, putting them at risk of spam calls and 'SIM-swapping' or 'SIM jacking' where a mobile number is transferred to a new SIM card.

"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," a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying by the Engadget.

After the web host was contacted, the Facebook users' database was pulled offline.

Some of the records also had the user's name, gender and location by country.

There have been several incidents after the Cambridge Analytica episode involving 87 million users where Facebook acknowledged series of privacy lapses, including the latest admission that it mishandled millions of users' passwords on Instagram and "unintentionally" uploaded emails of nearly 1.5 million of its new users.

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News Network
March 27,2020

Belgaum, Mar 26: The police on Thursday thrashed people who had gone to offer prayers at a mosque despite the nationwide lockdown in force.
In a video, the police personnel can be seen thrashing the people with batons while they were leaving after offering prayers at a local mosque here.
In another incident in Rajasthan's Pratapgarh, the police made few youngsters hop along a road and even gave the 'murga,' punishment to a few of them for violating the restrictions.
Similarly in Uttar Pradesh's Budaun, the police made people hop along a road with their bags strapped on their backs as a punishment. The people were possibly going to their native places.
In the video of the Budaun incident, a few men can be seen being made to hop along the road with a stick-wielding policeman keeping a watch.
SSP Budaun told ANI that an investigation is being conducted into the incident and expressed an apology for the police's behaviour.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a 21-day countrywide lockdown to check the spread of coronavirus, saying that "social distancing" is the only option to deal with the highly contagious disease.

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News Network
January 16,2020

Mangaluru, Jan 16: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is holding rallies and meetings and distributing booklets across the country in support of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, said ABVP National Secretary Harsha Narayan here on Thursday.

Speaking to media persons, he said that the CAA, which provides citizenship to Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains and Christians persecuted in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, was among the things that the ABVP was fighting for.

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News Network
July 5,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 5: In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and the fear of layoffs lurking everywhere, the state government is holding a first-of-its-kind virtual job fair on July 10, to help people find jobs commensurate with their skill sets.

Co-ordinated by the Karnataka Skill Development Corporation (KSDC), the job fair will see participation of more than 40 companies for about 6,000 job openings.

The government will connect companies with job seekers who have registered on the recently-launched Skill Connect portal or on the Kaushalya Karnataka’s portal for migrant workers from the state who have returned home.

A candidate can either directly apply to a company, or await the portal to match their skills with available jobs. There is also a self-evaluation section on the website which will suggest whether a candidate needs to further skill oneself or whether they are eligible for jobs with their current set of skills. 

Firms such as Life Insurance Corporation, Barbeque Nation and Arvind Mills are among the participants.

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Sheela Anagolum
 - 
Friday, 10 Jul 2020

Looking to build literacy, numeracy and basic life skills for students in the ages of 14-19

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