Facebook sues programmer who allegedly scraped data for 178 million users

Facebook is taking prison motion in reaction to every other large-scale information heist. According to The Record, the social community has sued Ukraine countrywide Alexander Solonchenko for allegedly scraping information for greater than 178 million customers. Solonchenko reportedly exploited Messenger’s touch import function with the aid of using the use of an automatic device that mimicked Android devices. He fed Facebook hundreds of thousands of telecellsmartphone numbers and accrued information on every occasion the webweb page lower back information on bills with telecellsmartphone numbers.

The attacker supposedly performed the marketing campaign among January 2018 and September 2019 (while Facebook close down the importer), and began out promoting it on a black marketplace discussion board in December 2020. Facebook tracked Solonchenko down after he used his discussion board username and make contact with info for e mail and activity boards. The guy has additionally scraped information from different targets, Facebook said, which includes a first-rate Ukranian bank.

In its complaint, Facebook requested for undefined damages in addition to bans stopping Solonchenko from gaining access to Facebook or promoting its scraped information.

This isn’t always the biggest such incident. Hackers scraped information for 533 million customers thru the identical function. However, this illustrates Facebook’s willpower to crack down on information scraping — it is inclined to pursue attackers in civil courtroom docket in hopes of discouraging comparable information raiding campaigns.