We have previously warned of potential identity theft risks that exist for Facebook users. A question that we have not specifically addressed was the risk that the popular social network inadvertently expose personal information of its users through a technical problem. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened earlier this month when many 80 million Facebook users had their full birth dates presentations on their profile pages.
Graham Cluley, a security expert with Sophos, was one of the first to breach the date of birth information and alerted Facebook immediately. The issue was resolved soon after.
The main problem here is that most Facebook users affected had proactively set their date of birth to be not visible to other Facebook users. This is a precaution, we recommend our guide to protecting against theft of Facebook identity.
Cluley recommended that, in addition to the date of birth hidden in the future keeping, Facebook users to take extra steps to protect sensitive information in the future.
"My advice to Facebook users would be, even if your date of birth
is set to be non-visible, change to a date disguised in such cases
awkwardness still happens. Facebook and other social networking sites
must be more attentive to the protection of data, or the risk of their members
users to lose. "
Learn more about how to protect yourself on Facebook by visiting our Facebook guide protection against identity theft.