One of the most widely used apps worldwide is WhatsApp. Through this programme, billions of users converse every day. However, prominence comes with certain security issues. According to a recent allegation, 500 million WhatsApp users’ personal information may have been obtained through hacking.
500 million WhatsApp users’ personal information has been stolen.
500 million WhatsApp users’ private information is on sale.
Cybernews’ most recent investigation claims that an actor advertised in a hacker forum to sell the personal information of over 487 million Whats App users, including their telephone numbers. Additionally, the listing states that the user data includes 32 million US users and comes from 84 different nations. Additionally, user information from nations including Egypt, Italy, Saudi Arabia, France, and Turkey is included in the list of compromised data.
Even a price list for the concerned personal information was made by hackers. For instance, the US market price for the WhatsApp user database is $7,000. Germany’s database costs $2,000, and the UK’s is $2,500. Unfortunately, a variety of frauds can be perpetrated using stolen phone numbers. Users who are relatively elderly are particularly at risk.
WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta, has not yet released a statement. How did hackers gain this information is a common question. End-to-end encryption safeguards the programme, which stands out for its security. However, the event raised concerns about WhatsApp’s security.
Additionally, it is now believed that the 500 million Whats App users’ data was taken by web harvesting or web scraping, which involves using an automated data tool to gather information from a particular site, a violation of Whats App’s terms of service. Unfortunately, until we have a formal statement from the corporation, we can’t give any conclusive information.