--- title: "500 million WhatsApp users whose data was put up for sale." description: "Up to 80 nations are said to have been impacted by the most recent WhatsApp data hack, including Russia, Italy, Egypt, Brazil, Spain, and more." author: "Muskan Singh" published: 2022-11-28 updated: 2022-11-28 canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/news/2452/500-million-whatsapp-users-whose-data-was-put-up-for-sale category: "whatsapp" tags: ["database", "database security", "whatsapp", "technology news"] reading_time: 2 minutes --- # 500 million WhatsApp users whose data was put up for sale. - Online data breaches have exposed the information of 6 million WhatsApp users in India. - Up to 80 countries have apparently been impacted by the breach. - Hackers can use the exposed information for spamming, phishing, and other purposes. **WhatsApp**, which boasts a user base of over two [billion people](https://yourviews.mindstick.com/story/1350/the-six-natural-resources-most-drained-by-our-7-billion-people), appears to be facing [data and privacy](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/115350/how-can-mobile-users-protect-their-data-and-privacy-from-online-threats-and-cyberattacks) issues once more. According to a Cybernews article, an unknown vendor posted the **[personal information](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/102585/how-to-secure-personal-information-on-a-laptop) of about 500 million WhatsApp users for sale on a hacker forum.** The social media corporation has not yet commented on this, but according to the article, it looked into many data samples and discovered that the leak was real. Up to **80 countries were apparently affected by the leak, including Brazil, Spain, Egypt, Italy, Brazil, and more.** India is also included on the list. The referenced source released a graph on its [Twitter account](https://www.mindstick.com/news/483/confirm-your-twitter-account-no-need-to-panic) that demonstrates how more than 6 [million people](https://yourviews.mindstick.com/view/88141/modi-is-a-hope-for-140-million-people)'s personal information had been exposed online. **[According to the report](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/38115/according-to-the-report-released-by-the-ministry-of-environment-forests-and-climate-change-on-august-12-what-is-the-total-estimated-number-of-elephants-in-india), the threat actor is asking $7,000, £2,500, and $2,000 for the US dataset, UK dataset, and German dataset, respectively**. It hid the cost in other countries, including India. How the hacker amassed the phone numbers of millions of active WhatsApp users is yet unknown. According to the article, **WhatsApp** may not be to blame and the hacker may have used a technique called 'scraping' to do the crime. Instead of a hack, several websites were used to collect the data in this situation. There is a possibility that the phone numbers were obtained from websites. **Hackers may use the exposed information for spamming, [phishing scams](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/103645/how-to-avoid-phishing-scams), [identity theft](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/103234/how-to-protect-against-identity-theft), and other online crimes.** According to the given source, consumers can try to avoid scamming attempts by ignoring them even if they won't be able to determine if their number is in the database. --- Original Source: https://www.mindstick.com/news/2452/500-million-whatsapp-users-whose-data-was-put-up-for-sale Copyright © MindStick Software Pvt. Ltd. This Markdown version is provided for developers, AI systems, and offline reading.