Facebook hosted data posted by cyber criminals including stolen identities and Social Security numbers for years, according to Motherboard.
The outlet, a subsidiary of Vice Media, was able to find such data through a Google search that revealed a number of public posts on Facebook containing sensitive personal information.
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Motherboard successfully verified some of the identities and Social Security numbers posted on Facebook, some of which had been on Facebook since 2014.
“We work hard to keep your account secure and safeguard your personal information. Posts containing information like Social Security numbers or credit card information are not allowed on Facebook, and we remove this material when we become aware of it,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to Motherboard.
The discovery comes one week after security journalist Brian Krebs found over 100 cyber crime Facebook groups where members exchanged hacked or stolen data.
The unearthing of such content on Facebook raises further questions about its ability to proactively police destructive use of its platform.
Lawmakers have skewered the site over the past year for becoming a tool by which Russian trolls attempted to manipulate U.S. politics and hammered Facebook’s data privacy practices that resulted in a British research firm hired by the Trump campaign, Cambridge Analytica, improperly harvesting the data of 87 million Facebook users.