A hacker claims to have stolen the WhatsApp data of 7.3 million Australians as part of a global attack on roughly 500 million users.
The hacker stated on a well-known hacking site on November 16 that they had stolen the WhatsApp data of 487 million users from 84 countries.
On the same site, the Optus hacker disclosed they had acquired the data of around 11 million Australians.
On November 16, the hacker claimed on a well-known hacking forum that they had stolen the data of 487 million WhatsApp users.
WhatsApp has stated that there is no proof of widespread theft, however Daily Mail Australia has reached out to the app’s developer, Meta, for feedback.
In addition to 1,3 million Australians, about 45 million Egyptians, 32 million Americans, 35 million Saudis, and 20 million French have been affected.
Another 11 million British mobile phone numbers have reportedly been taken.
The hacker is said to be selling data from the United States for $7,000, data from the United Kingdom for $2,500, and data from Germany for $2,000.
While WhatsApp denies any proof of theft, the hacker demonstrated stolen phone numbers to the website Cybernews, which proved their authenticity.
The stolen numbers are typically employed in sophisticated assaults that may target Australians with calls and texts from unknown numbers.
Mantas Sasnauskas, leader of the Cybernews research team, stated, “In this age, we all leave a substantial digital footprint, and IT giants like Meta should take all steps and measures to preserve that data.”
In addition to 1.3 million Australians, about 45 million Egyptians, 32 million Americans, 35 million Saudis, and 20 million French have been affected.
We should inquire as to whether the addition of a language stating that scraping or platform misuse is prohibited is sufficient. Threat actors don’t care about these words, thus businesses should take thorough technological measures to minimize dangers and avoid platform misuse.
It is the latest cyber assault to harm Australians; in September, the data of 11 million Optus subscribers was taken.
In October, current and past Australian workers of G4S had their data stolen, while 30,000 current and former employees of Telstra had their personal information compromised.
Earlier last month, foreign cybercriminals threatened to reveal the private Medibank information of millions of Australians, before exposing part of the information.