3 tips to make your old smartphones useful again

GeoffroyOndet

Journalist

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The mobile numbers of millions of French Facebook users have leaked on the Web. Here's how to check if your phone number is in this gigantic collection of data.

Facebook data leaks follow each other, but they are not alike. The latest, discovered at the end of January, is undoubtedly the most serious in the entire history of the social network. It affects some 500 million users worldwide, whose phone numbers have been made public on the web. In France, nearly 20 million users out of the forty on the platform are affected.

Is your mobile number part of this incredible data leak? You can now check it very easily, thanks to the dedicated Have I Been Pwned platform which has just been updated by its founder, Troy Hunt, to allow Facebook users to check if their number is affected. Here's how.

Also see video:

1. Go to Have I Been Pwned?

Launch your favorite web browser from your computer or smartphone and go to the Have I Been Pwned online platform to check if your data has leaked on the Web.

Go to Have I Been Pwned? (Free)

2. Enter your mobile number

In the search field displayed on the home page, enter your phone number in international format. For a French number, you must enter +33 followed by your mobile number without the first zero, for example, +33 6 11 22 33 44. Then click on the pwned? button.

If your number was found in this data leak, the platform displays an alert with a red background indicating the type of information that may be there.

Therefore, be particularly vigilant about calls and SMS you may receive in the future from unknown or suspicious numbers. This kind of data leaks are generally used by malicious souls for scam attempts at Ping Call, or fake packages awaiting receipt.

To limit the risks, it is strongly recommended to block spam by SMS and unwanted telephone calls by using the blocking module integrated into your smartphone, which you can complete with a filtering application such as Orange Telephone, available on both iOS and Android. .