WhatsApp denies claims of data leakage of approx 500 million users:’No evidence’

The WhatsApp spokeswoman told Business Today that the data breach claims are unverified screenshots. There is no indication of a WhatsApp data leak, the report’s author tweeted. 

WhatsApp, which Meta owns, has denied reports that 500 million users’ data was compromised over the weekend. Instant messaging service WhatsApp has publicly denied reports that it leaked user information. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility that the stolen data is genuine. 

A WhatsApp spokeswoman told Business Today that the data breach claims are unsubstantiated screenshots. To quote the spokesperson: “The assertion made in Cybernews is based solely on screenshots, which have not been verified. There is no indication of a ‘data leak’ from WhatsApp.” 

Cybernews reported earlier this week that supposedly 500 million individuals had their information posted on a hacker’s forum. The hacker on the site claimed to obtain WhatsApp numbers of 487 million users. The number of active WhatsApp accounts he claimed to have seen was presented in a screenshot he posted online. 

The article claims that they were able to verify the numbers by obtaining a subset of the stolen information. The hacker gave over 1000 connections of people from the UK and above 800 contacts from users in the UK, which turned out to be authentic WhatsApp numbers. 

WhatApp’s assurances that the breach was not from their side lead us to a different suspect that is ‘scrapping’. Information can be scraped from a wide variety of freely accessible online resources. Even if it turns out the data didn’t come from WhatsApp, the effect on the user is still negative. 

Users of WhatsApp must use extreme caution when interacting with unknown numbers. An attacker can use text messages or media sent to several recipients to gather sensitive data. Approximately 6.1 million Indian user accounts were compromised.