WhatsApp data leaked – 500 million user records for sale online
Earlier this month, an actor posted an advertisement on a well-known hacking forum claiming to be selling a 2022 database of 487 million WhatsApp numbers.
According to reports, the dataset contains data on WhatsApp users from 84 countries. According to the threat actor, more than 32 million records related to US users are included.
There are also a huge number of phone numbers belonging to citizens of Egypt (45 million), Italy (35 million), Saudi Arabia (29 million), France (20 million), and Turkey (20 million).
In addition, the dataset for sale is allegedly containing the phone numbers of over 11 million UK citizens as well as nearly 10 million Russians.
Cybernews reported that the threat actor was selling the US dataset for $7,000, the UK dataset for $2,500, and the German dataset for $2,000.
We recommend users remain cautious of any unsolicited calls or messages from unknown numbers, as these details are most often used by attackers for smishing and vishing attacks.
One week after Facebook’s massive data leak made headlines, a hacker forum posted an archive containing information scraped from 500 million LinkedIn profiles.
There is a possibility that leaked phone numbers could be used for marketing purposes, phishing, impersonation, and fraud.
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