Salary data of 29,000 Facebook employees has been stolen

Bank details of some 29,000 Facebook employees were stolen after a thief stole hard drives from an employee’s car. It took at least three weeks for Facebook to report the theft to the victims.

In addition to the names, the disc also contained bank account numbers of employees, and the last four digits of their social security numbers. Facebook writes that in an internal email to employees, which Bloomberg has seen. This concerns data from 29,000 Facebook employees who worked for the company in 2018, a spokesperson said.

The data was stolen after a payroll employee put hard drives in his car. Those drives were not encrypted, but according to Facebook, it was not the intention that drives are taken from the office in that way. The theft took place on November 17, and Facebook began a forensic investigation on November 20. It appeared on November 29 that employee information was on the discs. Facebook only informed those employees on Friday. According to Facebook, the hard drives did not contain data from users of the social network.