Data of crores of WhatsApp users stolen, hackers are selling data online

Hackers have stolen the data of crores of users of messaging service WhatsApp. These include users from 84 countries including India, America, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Hackers are trying to sell this data online. This data includes mobile numbers of WhatsApp users from 84 countries.

Cybernews’s Report It has been reported that an advertisement on a hacking community forum has claimed to sell the mobile numbers of 48.7 crore WhatsApp users. This information is mostly used in phishing attacks. For this reason, WhatsApp users should avoid calls and messages from unknown numbers. This is not the first time that data has been stolen from the platforms of Meta, which is owned by Facebook and WhatsApp. Last year, a hacker had offered to give the information of more than 50 crore Facebook users for free. This included the phone numbers and other details of these users.

WhatsApp is estimated to have more than two billion monthly active users worldwide. WhatsApp has banned about 26.85 lakh accounts in India in September. Of these, 8.72 lakh have been banned by the company before receiving complaints from users. The number of accounts blocked by WhatsApp is approximately 15 percent more compared to August. WhatsApp had banned 23.28 lakh accounts in August. WhatsApp said in its user safety report for the month of September, “About 26,85,000 WhatsApp accounts have been banned between September 1 and 30. Of these, about 8,72,000 accounts were banned even before receiving any report from users. Has been done.”

The stringent IT rules implemented last year have made it mandatory for big digital platforms to publish compliance reports every month. WhatsApp’s report states that it had received 666 complaints in September and action has been taken against only 12 of them. The central government is amending IT rules to make social media platforms like Twitter legally accountable for preventing banned and misinformation content.