Cybernews has verified a sample of the data the seller sent it upon request and claims it is genuine. The archive had 1,097 user numbers in the UK and 817 in the US.

Whose data is at risk?

The people most affected by the spill are Egypt (almost 45 million), Italy (over 35 million), the United States (over 32 million), Saudi Arabia (almost 29 million), France (almost 20 million) and Turkey (also almost 20 million) .

Considering that the WhatsApp messenger is used by about 2 billion people worldwide, hackers leaked the data of about 25 percent of registered users.

The vendor didn’t specify how he got this database, but he said it’s new – all data is up to date for 2022.

This leak is unlikely to pose a real danger to WhatsApp users, as knowing the phone alone makes it impossible to hack an account. However, criminals gaining access to this database may use the obtained information for another purpose – for example, they will try to gain the trust of potential victims to obtain payment information and extort money. Or such a voluminous base can be bought by one of the unscrupulous marketing companies for mass spam and advertising mailings.