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Facebook revealed Friday that due to a bug on the social networking site, roughly six million phone numbers and e-mail addresses had been inadvertently exposed.

In a blog post, Facebook said the security incident was caused by a bug in a feature used to make friend suggestions, which matches data when people upload their contact lists to the social network with other users' contact information, The Hill reported.

The bug then accidentally stored information used to make friend recommendations in user’s archives of account information, making the information temporarily available to others using the site.

Facebook said it disabled the feature as soon as it found out about the bug and fixed the problem immediately. 

"Although the practical impact of this bug is likely to be minimal since any email address or phone number that was shared was shared with people who already had some of that contact information anyway, or who had some connection to one another, it's still something we're upset and embarrassed by, and we'll work doubly hard to make sure nothing like this happens again," the company said in the blog post. "Your trust is the most important asset we have, and we are committed to improving our safety procedures and keeping your information safe and secure."

Facebook said "in almost all cases" the affected email addresses or phone numbers were exposed to only one person on the social network.

The company said exposed information was only limited to email addresses or phone numbers, not financial information, and was not shared with developers or advertisers, The Hill reported.