WhatsApp data of nearly 500 million users from 84 countries, including India, were leaked online by hackers, according to a report by Cybernews.
The stolen data was put on sale on a hacking community forum, which included contacts of over 32 million users from the US, 11 million from the UK, and 10 million from Russia.
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Nearly 61,62,450 Indian users were also affected, the data revealed. The hackers were selling the US dataset for $7,000, the UK for $2,500, and Germany for $2,000. Cybernews reported that the seller shared 1,097 UK-based numbers as evidence. The publication investigated and confirmed that they were from WhatsApp accounts. However, it is unclear how the hacker obtained the data.
According to reports, massive data sets posted online are obtained by scraping in violation of WhatsApp’s terms of service.
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