Massive new Facebook data breach revealed as personality quiz exposes private data of 3 million users

Facebook is auditing apps on its platform to avoid another Cambridge Analytica fiasco, but its efforts might be in vain since a new report claims that personal data of 3 million Facebook users was published on a low quality website after a popular personality quiz collected the said data from unsuspecting Facebookers.

According to a report by New Scientist, data of 3 million facebook users has been exposed because of participating in the myPersonality quiz on the platform. The myPersonality quiz app on Facebook collected answers to intimate questions it asked users and data from the app was then shared with hundreds of researchers by academics at the University of Cambridge. The personal data was then left exposed on the internet for four years as per the report and since it was published on an unsecure website, it was easily accessible to anyone who wanted to view it.

New Scientist claims that it was able to access this user data “illicitly” since the website where it was published had “insufficient security provisions.” As per the report, the leaked user data of 3 million Facebook users was “highly sensitive” and gave out personality details of the affected users, including results from psychological tests. The report further claims that the collected data was intended to be stored and shared anonymously, but the lack of proper security protocols led to it being easily accessible by anyone.