Chinese social media giant saw a massive information alienation issue in data of millions of users bachelor for sale on the dark web.

According to a March 19 report from Chinese blockchain news outlet Jinse, basic business relationship data of 172 meg users was available, priced at 0.177 BTC.  The account data for sale included user ID, number of Weibo posts, number of fans and followers, gender and geographical location.

Weibo confirmed the privacy issue however deleted the post later on

According to Jinse, Weibo's security director Luo Shiyao responded to the incident in a at present-deleted mail, explaining that:

"Users' mobile telephone numbers were leaked through forced matching with an address book API in 2019. The rest of the public information was scraped on the web."

Luo added that the company took firsthand measures to close down the API and reported the leak to the policy as soon every bit they detected information technology. He claimed the company was doing everything they tin can to observe those responsible. He added that:

"User privacy is crucial, especially when it comes to mobile phone numbers."

Jinse also reported on a postal service from former managing director of Ali Group Security Research Lab's that said:

"Many people'due south mobile phone numbers have been leaked. All you need is the Weibo account address and the user's telephone number is revealed."

Both Weibo security director and sometime Ali group lab manager later deleted these posts, according to Jinse.

Privacy effect continues to be a business concern for social media users

Equally Cointelegraph reported, a like incident happened to social media giant Facebook. In September, 17% of Facebook'south 2.4 billion users had their information exposed.

In that instance, a database of information from 419 million Facebook accounts including names, phone numbers, gender and state of residence became bachelor for download.