WhatsApp data breach: A step-by-step guide to check whether your data is leaked or not

New Delhi: Nearly 500 million WhatsApp users' phone numbers are available for purchase on the hacking community forum. According to Cybernews, a threat actor has advertised on a hacking site that it is selling a database with 487 million mobile phone numbers of WhatsApp users as of the year 2022. The actor asserted that the database included active WhatsApp users' mobile phone numbers from 84 different nations. The US, the UK, Russia, Egypt, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and even India were on the list.

Here's the step-by-step guide to check whether your data is safe or not:

- Visit www.cybernews.com

- Enter your mobile number or Email ID in the international formats.

- Click on the 'Check now' option.

For the unversed, over 2 billion people use WhatsApp internationally. The threat actor asserts that around 32 million US user records are included in the stolen data collection. Similar to Egypt, 35 million users in Italy, 29 million in Saudi Arabia, 20 million in France, and 20 million in Turkey are all affected. According to reports, the database contains the phone numbers of over 11 million UK nationals and about 10 million Russians.

The hacker is reportedly selling these datasets on the dark web, according to the reports.