'No evidence': WhatsApp rejects claims of data leak of 500 million users

Meta-owned WhatsApp has rejected the claims of a data leak of around 500 million users that was reported over the weekend. The instant messaging application has come forward and rejected the claim that the data was leaked from WhatsApp. However, this does not mean that the leaked data is not legitimate. 

A WhatsApp spokesperson told Business Today that the data leak claims are unsubstantiated screenshots. The spokesperson said, "The claim written on Cybernews is based on unsubstantiated screenshots. There is no evidence of a ‘data leak’ from WhatsApp."

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Earlier this week, a report from Cybernews claimed that data of around 500 million users was leaked online on a hacking forum. The hacker on the forum claimed to have WhatsApp numbers of 487 million users. In order to prove his claim, he even shared a screenshot of the number of WhatsApp accounts that were present.

In further investigation, the report claimed that they were able to obtain a small portion of the data that was leaked to verify the numbers. The hacker provided over 1000 contacts of users from UK and over 800 contacts from users in UK, which turned out to be actual WhatsApp numbers. 

WhatApp's claims that the leak was not from their end leads us to another suspect which is 'scrapping'. Scrapping of data can be done from various public websites and platforms. While the data could not be confirmed to be sourced from WhatsApp, the impact on the end user is still bad.

Also read: Scammers posing as Adar Poonawalla defraud Serum Institute of Rs 1 crore

WhatsApp users should take heavy precautions in dealing with unknown numbers on the platform. Malicious actors can text or send media to different contacts in order to extract crucial information. Around 6.1 million accounts from India have been impacted by this leak.