Facebook is unfortunately no stranger to data breaches, and it seems like a big one may have victimized Facebook Marketplace users this week. According to multiple reports, a threat actor called IntelBroker leaked 200,000 Facebook Marketplace user records on a hacker forum this week, including users’ names, phone numbers, email addresses, Facebook IDs, and other identifying personal information.

According to the threat actor, a different hacker originally stole the information by compromising the account of a Facebook employee. IntelBroker is a well-known bad actor, and some of the stolen Marketplace data has been independently verified, so it’s likely this threat is legitimate.

“In October 2023, a cyber criminal by the name of ‘algoatson’ on Discord, breached a contractor that manages cloud services for Facebook and stole its partial user database of 200,000 entries,” IntelBroker reportedly said in the black-market forum thread.

For now, Marketplace users are encouraged to change their passwords, turn on two-factor authentication, and watch their accounts for any suspicious activity. Unfortunately, once a trove of sensitive data is released like this, there’s not much Facebook can do to help. However, the company absolutely must get a handle on this problem to plug these types of leaks in the future.

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