The instant communication platform, WhatsApp, was the target of a recent hack that resulted in the extraction of close to 500 million associated phone numbers. Portugal has 2 million 277 361 thousand directed telephone numbers.
It is a collection of nearly 500 million phone numbers for sale in a forum dedicated to to hack. That is, an entire recently updated database with contacts associated with a certain user account in the messaging application.
Use Whatsapp? It is likely that your number is currently for sale on the Internet
The alert was given by the publication cyber newsmaking the publication of a new database composed of about 500 million phone numbers🇧🇷 Contacts will be posted on a popular forum dedicated to to hackwaiting buyer.
According to the source, these phone contacts were obtained from 84 countries, with Portugal on the list of target nations. Specifically, and relying on the aforementioned source, more than 2 million national users can have their telephone number for sale on the Internet.
This database with a total of more than 487 million phone numbers will now be waiting for the highest bidder. As has happened on previous occasions, the material will be sold to whoever offers the most money, although sometimes this type of “auction” does not have the desired effect.
More than 2 million Portuguese phone numbers for sale in an online forum
This data leak will have exposed the personal information, the phone number, of about 500 million people, WhatsApp users. We remember, by the way, a similar situation in which WhatsApp had difficulties with the indexing of phone numbers, which resulted in their publication online through a simple Google search.
This time, however, the techniques that will have allowed the hackeror team hackers Harvest this huge collection of WhatsApp phone numbers.
Everything indicates that the publication of the sale in the mentioned forum of to hack It was carried out by a common user of the platform, without further explanation being given to justify the origin of the data.
In fact, the only information disclosed on said forum states that all phone numbers belong to active WhatsApp users at the time of publication. This would have been the biggest argument to encourage the sale of the database in question.
What to do to find out if the number was the object of this attack?
Access the platform I’ve been pwned and enter, in this case, the telephone number. The search engine will compare the data entered with incidents and references in documented cases of information leakage.
If you identify the data as compromised, the user should be aware of the misuse of their phone number, as explained below.
The phone numbers will be of active WhatsApp users in 2022
Among the most affected nations are Egypt, Italy, Saudi Arabia, France, the United States of America and Turkey. In addition, Portugal is also on the list with more than 2 million numbers mentioned in the data.
What is the destination of these phone numbers and how can they be used? Essentially for three purposes that we alert our readers to. Namely:
- Marketing
- identity theft
- Fraud
The case is currently under investigation, and the cybersecurity team claims to have already contacted those responsible for Meta.