WhatsApp Data Leak: Private Details Of 500 Million Global Users Reportedly Up For Sale

WhatsApp data leak is said to affect users from over 84 countries across the world.

WhatsApp, the Meta-owned instant messaging platform, has fallen victim to a massive data leak once again. As per a report by Cybernews, information and private details of about 500 million users have been put up for sale by unknown bad actor(s). The leaked datasheet allegedly has user information from several countries across the world, such as Egypt (945 million), Italy (35 million), Saudi Arabia (29 million), France (20 million), Turkey (20 million), and the US (32 million). Not just that, the datasheet is also said to about 10 million Russian as well as 11 million UK citizens' cell phone numbers, and their information is up for sale online.

According to the report, the person(s) who leaked and uploaded the data for sale wanted to sell the US dataset for $7,000, the UK dataset for $2,500, and the German dataset for $2,000.

As seen historically, such information is usually leaked by hackers for the purpose of carrying out smishing (text-based phishing) and vishing (voice call-based phishing) attacks. Bad actors usually access data through a systematic method of calling people from unknown numbers. Such hacking is also carried out by sending unsolicited messages to users' phone numbers.

Cybernews conducted an investigation on some of the data samples shared with them by the anonymous threat actors, and it found that the information was correct. The investigation revealed that they were all real WhatsApp users from the UK and the US. The sellers told Cybernews that they "used their strategy" to gather the information. According to the report, they claimed that all the numbers belonged to active WhatsApp users.

WhatsApp has over two billion active users from across the globe.

Meta has not offered a comment on the breach so far. In the past too, Meta has been at the receiving end of a lot of criticism and flak for allegedly allowing third partires to collect data.

Mantas Sasnauskas, Cybernews research team head, said, "In this age, we all leave a sizeable digital footprint — and tech giants like Meta should take all precautions and means to safeguard that data." Sasnauskas also said that companies should take rigorous steps to mitigate threats and prevent platform abuse from a technical standpoint.