WhatsApp: Apparent massive data leak from meta messenger

WhatsApp and users of the world-famous messenger have received bad news. Apparently, there has been a massive data leak that affects 487 million users.

Phone numbers of 487 million users leaked

Cyberattacks are increasing noticeably in our digitalized world. In the process, more and more smaller, medium-sized companies are also affected by attacks. Now, however, another big fish has obviously been caught. WhatsApp has allegedly become the victim of a comprehensive data theft. The phone numbers of 487 million users must have been stolen from the messenger belonging to the tech company Meta. At least, these are currently for sale in a relevant hacker forum. In view of the sheer number of leaked numbers, it is hardly surprising that numbers from Germany are also said to be affected. A total of 6 million numbers are said to belong to users from the Federal Republic.

Numbers of WhatsApp in mid-November on the darkweb

Really, there is not much information about the incident yet. But what we know so far is that the relevant database with millions of phone numbers was offered for sale in mid-November in the relevant hacker forum. The incident was reported by the experts from Cybernews. They were also the ones who immediately made inquiries. The results of the same are anything but reassuring. Thus the telephone numbers are not at all to be a Fake offer. The website concludes this not only from the fact that the seller himself guarantees that the accounts are genuine. Rather, their authenticity check has shown that they are real WhatsApp users.

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Meta silent on incident

In 2014, Facebook bought Meta for a purchase price of $19 billion. Today, WhatsApp belongs to the tech company Meta as part of Facebook’s rebranding. Given its sheer size, one would expect the California-based company, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, to have already commented on the incidents. But nothing of the sort. Meta itself has remained silent until now. It is possible that the Internet giant would first like to verify the authenticity of the data. It is clear that it is not yet known from where the seller was able to extract the data. When asked by Cybernews, he probably only stated that he had used “his strategy” to do so. We can only hope that the data is not misused. After all, phone numbers are a perfect target for generating money in the course of criminal activities such as phishing attacks.