500 million Whatsapp users, including from India, at risk of data breach

500 million Whatsapp users, including from India, at risk of data breach

According to a Cybernews report, WhatsApp data from nearly half a billion users in 84 countries, including India, may have been compromised and sold online.


According to the report, it investigated a data sample after a post on a "well-known hacking community forum" claimed to be selling an up-to-date database of 487 million WhatsApp users and discovered that the claim was most likely true, implying that 25% of the total 2 billion monthly active users worldwide could be at risk.

Leaked phone numbers could be used for any number of reasons, including marketing and phishing.

The report said more than 32 million of the leaked records were from users in the US, followed by the UK (11 million). The most affected nations include Egypt (45 million), Italy (35 million), Saudi Arabia (29 million), France (20 million), Turkey (20 million), and Russia (10 million). In India, the report added, more than 6 million WhatsApp users could be at risk.



Cybernews said it received a sample of around 2,000 numbers to verify the data breach claims and found that they belonged to WhatsApp users.


This isn’t the first time Meta and its online platforms have found themselves in the middle of a data security issue.

Over 500 million Facebook users' information was made available for free online last year. A data breach affected 419 million Facebook users and 49 million Instagram users in 2019. In the same year, it faced another breach leaving the data of 267 million users exposed

Are you Safe on Social Media??
BEWARE!!

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