Facebook Has Hosted Stolen Identities and Social Security Numbers for Years (vice.com)

Cybercriminals have posted sensitive personal information, such as credit card and social security numbers, of dozens of people on Facebook and have advertised entire databases of private information on the social platform, Motherboard reports. Some of these posts have been left up on Facebook for years, and the internet giant only acted on these posts after the publication told it about them. From the report: As of Monday, there were several public posts on Facebook that advertised dozens of people's Social Security Numbers and other personal data. These weren't very hard to find. It was as easy as a simple Google search. Most of the posts appeared to be ads made by criminals who were trying to sell personal information. Some of the ads are several years old, and were posted as "public" on Facebook, meaning anyone can see them, not just the author's friends. Independent security researcher Justin Shafer alerted Motherboard to these posts Monday.

Comments

Yeah, that's how it works

[drinkypoo]

Some of these posts have been left up on Facebook for years, and the internet giant only acted on these posts after the publication told it about them.

Yes, Facebook depends on notifications to catch some illicit content. If they acted on those posts once notified, the system is working — except for the part where someone can use your SSN to get credit in your name. That part is broken, by design. However, that part isn't in Facebook.

You can play whack-a-mole with SSNs from now until eternity, or you can fix the credit problem, but you can't protect SSN's by playing whack-a-mole.