500 Million WhatsApp User Phone Numbers For Sale Online

Someone is allegedly selling up-to-date mobile phone numbers
30 November 2022
By WhatsApp - Derivative of WhatsApp logo.svgExtracted from official website: https://www.whatsapp.com (File link: [1]), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45980063

Someone is allegedly selling up-to-date mobile phone numbers of nearly 500 million WhatsApp users.

Last week, a threat actor posted an ad on a well-known hacking community forum, claiming they were selling a 2022 database of 487 million WhatsApp user mobile numbers.

The dataset allegedly contains WhatsApp user data from 84 countries. The actor claims the records include over 32 million US users, 45 million from Egypt, 35 million from Italy and 29 million from Saudi Arabia, as well as data from Russia and the UK. 

The threat actor said they were selling the US dataset for US$7,000 – approximately $10,000 Australian dollars. 

Such information is mostly used by attackers for smishing and vishing attacks. 

Smishing is the fraudulent practice of sending text messages purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords or credit card numbers. 

Vishing is similar, except it involves making phone calls or leaving voice messages.

WhatsApp is reported to have more than two billion monthly active users globally.

WhatsApp users should remain wary of any calls from unknown numbers, unsolicited calls and text messages.

- CyberBeat

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