The fact that Zuckerberg's personal info was included in the hack was revealed over Twitter by cybersecurity expert Dave Walker. He included a screenshot of Zuckerberg's name and information with a partially blacked-out phone number, and suggested "If journalists are struggling to get a statement from @facebook, maybe just give him a call?"
Regarding the #FacebookLeak, of the 533M people in the leak - the irony is that Mark Zuckerberg is regrettably included in the leak as well.If journalists are struggling to get a statement from @facebook, maybe just give him a call, from the tel in the leak? @GazTheJourno pic.twitter.com/lrqlwzFMjU
— Dave Walker (@Daviey) April 3, 2021
According to Israeli cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock co-founder Alon Gal, the information appears to be the same set of Facebook-linked telephone numbers that has been circulating in hacker circles since January and whose existence was first reported by tech publication Motherboard.
Reuters was not immediately able to vet the information, which is being offered for a few euros' worth of digital credit on a well-known site for low-level hackers, but Gal said he had verified the authenticity of at least some of the data by comparing it against phone numbers of people he knew.
Other journalists say they have also been able to match known phone numbers to the details in the data dump.
According to Business Insider, who had first reported the hack, the information is freely available on a forum for anyone with basic data skills.
An attempt by Reuters to reach the leaker over the messaging service Telegram was not immediately successful. Facebook did not return messages seeking comment.
Motherboard's story earlier this year cited Facebook as saying the leaked data appeared to be the fruit of a bug that the company fixed in August 2019.
Gal told Reuters that Facebook users should be alert to "social engineering attacks" by people who may have obtained their phone numbers or other private data in the coming months.