Late last month, Facebook posted a concerning blog that noted a significant data breach in which the information from as many as 50 million users was compromised.

At the time the social media company did not have any detail as to who was behind the breach, but many suspected some sort of foreign entity or state-sponsored organisation.

According to a new report by the Wall Street Journal (paywall) that is not the case, as the publication’s anonymous sources say that it was in fact the doing of spammers.

More specifically it’s believed that deceptive advertising was used in order to gain access to user’s login tokens, which contains account details and contact information.

While the researchers behind this WSJ report have not identified the individuals behind this latest data breach, they have noted that the people who orchestrated the attack exist within the Facebook and Instagram ecosystem posing as a digital marketing company.

Naturally then, those using the two social media platforms should be a little more vigilant should a digital marketing agency try to contact them.

That said Facebook has not issued any comment following this WSJ report, so it still remains to be seen if the publication’s sources did indeed find the root of the latest data breach. As such, there could still potentially be some sort of state-sponsored entity behind last month’s attack.

With the US midterm elections set to take place in November, all eyes will be on social media sites like Facebook, to ensure the spread of misinformation does not have an impact in the same way it did during the 2016 presidential elections.