SocialArks Data Breach (2021)

A cloud misconfig by SocialArks exposed 318 million records gleaned from Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. More than 400GB of public and private profile data for 214 million social-media users from around the world has been exposed to the internet – including details for celebrities and social-media influencers in the U.S. and elsewhere. The leak stems from a misconfigured ElasticSearch database owned by Chinese social-media management company SocialArks, which contained personally identifiable information (PII) from users of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and other platforms, according to researchers at Safety Detectives.