Facebook, one of the world’s most popular social media companies, has filed a lawsuit against Alexander Solenchenko. Facebook has taken legal action against the Ukrainian citizen for illegally collecting and smuggling data of about 160 million Facebook users.
That person has collected user data by feeding millions of phone numbers on Facebook. It is believed that he did this work of collecting data from January 2016 to September 2019 and started selling them in various black market forums from December last year.
According to a report in The Record, Solenchenko misused Messenger’s Contact Import feature through an automated tool capable of duplicating Android devices.
Facebook tracks Solenchenko and monitors his forum’s username and contact details. These were used for his e-mails and job boards. According to Facebook, Ceylonchenko also stole data from other media. It is even involved in the data theft of one of the major banks in Ukraine.
The lawsuit alleges that Solenchenko was barred from accessing Facebook, as well as a ban on selling his stolen data.
However, this is not the first time that a person has illegally hacked and sold the data of about 540 million Facebook users.