A recent dark web WhatsApp data leak has been confirmed to be comprised of 487 million users. Someone is apparently selling the current phone numbers of approximately 500 million WhatsApp users.
On November 16, an actor advertised a 2022 database of 487 million WhatsApp user numbers on a well-known hacking group forum. The collection is said to contain WhatsApp user data from 84 different countries. According to the actor, around 32 million US user records are contained.
Dark web WhatsApp data leak in numbers
Egypt (45 million), Italy (35 million), Saudi Arabia (29 million), France (20 million), and Turkey (20 million) each have a sizable number of phone numbers.
| Egypt | 44,823,547 | Yemen | 4,617,359 | Sweden | 1,092,140 |
| Italy | 35,677,323 | Kuwait | 4,468,134 | Ghana | 1,027,969 |
| USA | 32,315,282 | Libya | 4,204,514 | Philippines | 879,699 |
| Saudi Arabia | 28,804,686 | Bangladesh | 3,816,339 | Mauritius | 848,558 |
| France | 19,848,559 | Canada | 3,494,385 | Taiwan | 734,807 |
| Turkey | 19,638,821 | Palestine | 3,367,576 | China | 670,334 |
| Morocco | 18,939,198 | Kazakhstan | 3,214,990 | Croatia | 659,115 |
| Colombia | 17,957,908 | Belgium | 3,183,584 | Denmark | 639,841 |
| Iraq | 17,116,398 | Jordan | 3,105,988 | Greece | 671,722 |
| Africa | 14,323,766 | Singapore | 3,073,009 | Afghanistan | 558,393 |
| Mexico | 13,330,561 | Bolivia | 2,956,209 | Albania | 506,602 |
| Malaysia | 11,675,894 | Hong Kong | 2,937,841 | Norway | 475,809 |
| United Kingdom | 11,522,328 | Poland | 2,669,381 | Bulgaria | 432,473 |
| Algeria | 11,505,868 | Qatar | 2,526,694 | Japan | 428,625 |
| Spain | 10,894,206 | Argentina | 2,347,553 | Macao | 414,228 |
| Russia | 9,996,405 | Portugal | 2,277,361 | Namibia | 409,356 |
| Sudan | 9,464,772 | Cameroon | 1,997,658 | Jamaica | 385,890 |
| Nigeria | 9,000,131 | Lebanon | 1,829,661 | Hungary | 377,045 |
| Peru | 8,075,317 | Guatemala | 1,645,068 | Ecuador | 310,259 |
| Brazil | 8,064,946 | Tunisa | 1,595,346 | Iran | 301,723 |
| Australia | 7,320,478 | Switzerland | 1,592,039 | Slovenia | 229,039 |
| UAE | 6,978,927 | Uruguay | 1,509,314 | Lithuania | 220,160 |
| Syria | 6,939,528 | Panama | 1,502,310 | Brunei | 213,795 |
| Chile | 6,668,083 | Costa Rica | 1,464,002 | Luxembourg | 188,201 |
| India | 6,162,450 | Bahrain | 1,450,124 | Serbia | 162,898 |
| Germany | 6,054,423 | Finland | 1,381,569 | Cyprus | 152,321 |
| Netherlands | 5,430,388 | Czech Republic | 1,375,988 | Puerto Rico | 130,856 |
| Oman | 5,048,532 | Austria | 1,249,388 | Indonesia | 130,331 |
The information for sale also apparently contains the phone numbers of approximately 10 million Russians and over 11 million UK nationals. The actor sells the US dataset for $7,000, the UK dataset for $2,500, and the German dataset for $2,000.
Because such information is commonly used by attackers in smishing and vishing attacks, we advise users to be wary of any calls from unknown numbers, as well as unsolicited calls and messages.
According to reports, WhatsApp has more than two billion monthly active users worldwide. The supplier of WhatsApp’s database shared a sample with researchers upon request. The shared sample included 1097 UK and 817 US user numbers.
According to the researchers, all of the numbers in the sample were all WhatsApp users. The vendor did not clarify how they acquired the information, just stating that they “collected the data using their strategy.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and WhatsApp is currently silent about the news.
The information on WhatsApp users could be obtained by mass data harvesting, also known as scraping, which is a violation of WhatsApp’s Terms of Service.
This assertion is entirely hypothetical. However, massive data dumps posted online are frequently obtained through scraping. Meta itself, long criticized for letting third parties scrape or collect user data, saw over 533 million user records leaked on a dark forum. The actor was practically giving away the dataset for free.
Days after a massive Facebook data leak made the headlines, an archive containing data purportedly scraped from 500 million LinkedIn profiles had been put for sale on a popular hacker forum.
Leaked phone numbers from the dark web WhatsApp data leak could be used for marketing purposes, phishing, impersonation, and fraud.
“In this age, we all leave a sizeable digital footprint – and tech giants like Meta should take all precautions and means to safeguard that data,” head of Cybernews research team Mantas Sasnauskas said. “We should ask whether an added clause of ‘scraping or platform abuse is not permitted in the Terms and Conditions’ is enough. Threat actors don’t care about those terms, so companies should take rigorous steps to mitigate threats and prevent platform abuse from a technical standpoint.”
To prevent consequences of personal data leaks, such as phishing or malware attacks, regular users should adopt common cybersecurity measures. This includes a reliable antivirus that blocks various cyberthreats and for online privacy, consider using a VPN.
Sad news all around folks. But we hope our Dark web WhatsApp data leak news got you woken up to the mess Meta is. If these kinds of news are up your alley, try checking out our Google Chrome security vulnerability discovered and the possible TikTok data breach. Stay safe this Christmas.
About WhatsApp
WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows users to send text and voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. WhatsApp’s client application runs on mobile devices, and can be accessed from computers. The service requires a cellular mobile telephone number to sign up. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client.
