WhatsApp is once again in the eye of a media storm after learning of a data breach from nearly 500 million users worldwideand that they are already sold – or in the process of being sold – to the highest bidder in batches by country.

According to Cybernews, it was on November 16, ten days ago, that “on a well-known hacking community forum” someone put up for sale a database of 2022 with 487 million phone numbers of WhatsApp usersyes, with an uneven distribution among the different affected countries.

It should be recalled that WhatsApp is one of the most popular communication services in the world, which is said to have a user base of more than two billion. So this security breach would hit a quarter of the total, which is no small feat. However, the countries that are said to be most affected would be only a few.

For example, 45 million from Egypt, 35 million from Italy, 29 million from Saudi Arabia, and 20 million from France and Turkey are said to be the countries with the highest representation in these data thefts by population. although there are also the United States, Russia or the United Kingdom with 32, 11 and 10 million accounts for sale.

Speaking of sales, the same leaker answered Cybernews’ questions, and some of the prices he lists for the bundles are $7,000 for the United States, $2,500 for the United Kingdom, and $2,000 for Germany. A small amount, in fact the one the alleged cybercriminal is asking for, but after all, they are phone numbersnothing more.

There it is in the complexity, in the massiveness of the breach, but also in the relative danger, well, maybe not in that amount, but in terms of getting phone numbers… A phone number that, if the reports are confirmed, something that Meta still did or did, although all the trade press believes it to be true, will or could be used for purposes marketing, phishingimpersonation and fraudamong others.