Including a major Ukrainian bank, the man has also scraped data from other targets, Facebook said
Ukrainian national programmer, Alexander Solonchenko has been sued by the tech giant Facebook for allegedly scraping data for more than 178 million users.
By using an automated tool that mimicked Android devices, Solonchenko reportedly exploited Messenger’s contact import feature, citing The Record, Engadget reported on Saturday.
Whenever the site returned info on accounts with phone numbers, he fed Facebook millions of phone numbers and gathered data.
When Facebook shut down the importer, and started selling it on a black market forum in December 2020, the attacker supposedly conducted the campaign between January 2018 and September 2019.
After he used his forum username and contact details for email and job boards, Facebook tracked Solonchenko down, the report said
Including a major Ukrainian bank, the man has also scraped data from other targets, Facebook said.
In its complaint, Facebook asked for undefined damages as well as bans preventing Solonchenko from accessing Facebook or selling its scraped data.
Also read: CIO News interviews Shri Wangki Lowang, Minister (IT) of Arunachal Pradesh
Do Follow: CIO News LinkedIn Account | CIO News Facebook | CIO News Youtube | CIO News Twitter
About us:
CIO News, a proprietary of Mercadeo, produces award-winning content and resources for IT leaders across any industry through print articles and recorded video interviews on topics in the technology sector such as Digital Transformation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Cloud, Robotics, Cyber-security, Data, Analytics, SOC, SASE, among other technology topics.
