META has disclosed that roughly 1,500 individuals were affected by an intrusion linked to GitHub repositories containing the company’s software code. The incident, detected in the preceding weeks, involved an outside group gaining access using an employee’s stolen credentials. Meta’s security team severed the attackers’ access, and the company has since coordinated with GitHub and law enforcement. Notifications to those impacted began on 13 October 2026.
Meta says about 99% of what was taken was business data in the form of software code related to its products, with the remaining 1% consisting of personal data. The personal data were reportedly added to the repositories by mistake and should not have been there, as storing such information on GitHub violated company policy.
Meta notes that a substantial portion of the data appearing as personal information was synthetic or anonymised test data, which could complicate distinguishing genuine records from test data for the attackers. The firm does not believe the hackers sought Meta’s data specifically, and states there was no vulnerability in any Meta product nor a breach of Meta’s internal systems.
In response, Meta rotated secrets found in the affected repositories, strengthened product security to reduce risks from access to business data, and is implementing proactive controls to prevent user data from being uploaded to GitHub. The company is also offering credit monitoring and dark‑web monitoring to those affected.