WhatsApp Data Leak: 500 Million Users’ Phone Numbers From 84 Countries, Including India, Up For Sale

According to a Cybernews article, WhatsApp data has leaked, resulting in 500 million users’ phone numbers from 84 countries, including India, being put up for sale.

WhatsApp Data Leak: 500 Million Users’ Phone Numbers From 84 Countries, Including India, Up For Sale 1

Users’ personal information, including mobile phone numbers, from the Meta-owned instant messaging service WhatsApp is allegedly breached and is being offered for sale on a well-known hacking forum.

According to a Cybernews article, several people advertised a 2022 database of over 487 million WhatsApp user mobile numbers on the hacking community forum on November 16. The information is probably accurate because it has been verified by multiple sources.

This WhatsApp user database, which includes information from 84 nations (including India), shows that nearly one-fourth of WhatsApp’s estimated two billion active monthly users may be at risk.

There are allegedly more than 6 million Indian WhatsApp user records for sale. The report asserts that there are more than 32 million mobile numbers registered in the US, 45 million in Egypt, 35 million in Italy, 29 million in Saudi Arabia, 20 million in France, and about 20 million in Turkey, in addition to the Indian users.

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The report claims that hackers were asking $7,000, $2,500, and $2,000 respectively for the US dataset, the UK dataset, and the German dataset.

A WhatsApp representative responded to the disclosure by saying,”The claim written on Cybernews is based on unsubstantiated screenshots. There is no evidence of a ‘data leak’ from WhatsApp.”

Leaked phone numbers are one example of the personal user data that is most commonly used for marketing and phishing, impersonation, and fraud attacks.

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