500 million whats app user records up for sale online : Reports

500 million whats app user records for sale online

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The biggest data threat to all over the world. phone numbers of nearly 500 million WhatsApp users have been leaked  as per source of cybernews and its is up for sale.

 The database, up for sale on a popular hacking forum, which includes personal information of WhatsApp users from 84 countries, (including India) according to a report by Cybernews.

However WhatsApp has denied the claims. "The claim written on Cybernews is based on unsubstantiated screenshots. There is no evidence of a 'data leak' from WhatsApp," said a spokesperson

Let's check what's the story inside

As per the news received ,Someone is allegedly selling up-to-date mobile phone numbers of nearly 500 million WhatsApp users. 

On contacting the person who claim to have the data, it is revelaed that the US dataset is available for $7,000, while the UK one will cost $2,500. The shared numbers are confirmed that they were all from WhatsApp accounts,1097 UK-based mumbers from 84 countries. Threat actor claims there are over 32 million US user records included.

Another huge chunk of phone numbers belongs to the citizens of Egypt (45 million), Italy (35 million), Saudi Arabia (29 million), France (20 million), and Turkey (20 million).

Source - Screenshot Image by Cybernews 

The dataset for sale also allegedly has nearly 10 million Russian and over 11 million UK citizens' phone numbers.

Such information is mostly used by attackers for smishing and vishing attacks, so we recommend users to remain wary of any calls from unknown numbers, unsolicited calls and messages.

This is not the first instance that a Meta-owned platform has been hit by a data breach. Last year, the personal data of over 500 million Facebook users, including 6 million records from India, was allegedly leaked. The leaked data then included phone numbers and other details.

• To prevent consequences of personal data leaks, such as phishing or malware attacks, regular users should adopt common cybersecurity measures. This includes a reliable antivirus that blocks various cyberthreats, such as TotalAV with great Black Friday deals. And for online privacy, consider looking at the the best VPNs for WhatsApp on the market that encrypt your data.