WhatsApp has responded to allegations of a data breach on the platform. WhatsApp claims that there is no evidence of a data leak from the messaging app and that the unsubstantiated screenshots do not make a compelling case for otherwise.
“The claim written on Cybernews is based on unsubstantiated screenshots. There is no evidence of a ‘data leak’ from WhatsApp,” said a WhatsApp spokesperson on Monday.
In fact, the reporter of the Cybernews piece on the WhatsApp data breach confirms this. According to Jurgita Lapienyt, Chief Editor of Cybernews, there is no evidence of WhatsApp being hacked. She goes on to say that the phone number leak could be a scrape.
Just a few days ago, a report claimed that data from over 500 million WhatsApp users from various countries was being sold on hacker forums. Because WhatsApp uses a phone number, it was alleged that the messaging data had a leak that exposed the data.
According to the report, the actual data includes 487 million WhatsApp users, which is by no means a small number. These users are from 84 countries, and the list includes well-known names such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Egypt, and some users from India.
The hacker had even assigned different prices to different countries’ user data. According to the report, US data is available for around $7000 (Rs 5,61,800 approx), UK data is $2000 (Rs 1,61,800 approx), and German data is $2,500 (Rs 2,04,100 approx).
Even though WhatsApp has quashed the concerns regarding the supposed leak, it is still important that people be careful about accepting or replying to messages from unknown numbers. Because spammers can easily reach out to these victims and take advantage of their exposed mobile numbers in different ways.
