Earlier quoted context omitted.
> name, email address and phone number I kind of work on the assumption that those things are largely public. I mean, phone books were a thing for a very long time. Don't get me wrong, leak bad, very bad, but they didn't leak my bank accounts or a list of my worst fears.
Did you read the article? "For 14 million people, the attackers accessed the same two sets of information, as well as other details people had on their profiles. This included username, gender, locale/language, relationship status, religion, hometown, self-reported current city, birthdate, device types used to access Facebook, education, work, the last 10 places they checked into or were tagged in, website, people or…
Too often an email address plus correct answers to questions like “what’s your mother’s birthplace?”, “what’s your fathers middle name?”, “what’s your favourite hockey team” are used to prove identity online, and these types of questions could be very answerable from this breach.