WhatsApp users around the world are being asked to watch out for strange messages from unknown numbers, after a notorious cyber criminal claims to have stolen 487million phone numbers - with plans to sell them on to the highest bidder.
And while it seems like an idle threat - a few numbers have been shared with the team at Cybernews, who have since confirmed that they are authentic accounts.
WhatsApp members of the UK, US and Europe are all said to have been affected by the batch of numbers reported stolen.
Read more: Daughter left own family £28k in debt by secretly taking out phone contracts in their name
The Daily Express reports that disclosing more about their plans, the threat-maker said that they are selling the US dataset for $7,000 (£5,800), the UK – $2,500 (£2,000), and Germany – $2,000 (£1,700). Once picked up by cyber criminals, these phone numbers may be used to send out an abundance of spam, malicious content and messages which aim to steal money and personal details - alike the popular 'Hi mum' tactic.
That hack sees fraudsters impersonating sons and daughters who are in desperate need of money, with some victims losing thousands of pounds through the scam. Cybernews is in-turn asking all WhatsApp users to be especially careful should they receive calls from unknown numbers, or messages from contacts they're weary of.
If you receive anything which seems out of place, you are advised to refrain from responding and deleting the message instantly.
Speaking about the attack, Mantas Sasnauskas the head of Cybernews research team, said: "In this age, we all leave a sizeable digital footprint – and tech giants like Meta should take all precautions and means to safeguard that data. We should ask whether an added clause of 'scraping or platform abuse is not permitted in the Terms and Conditions' is enough.
"Threat actors don't care about those terms, so companies should take rigorous steps to mitigate threats and prevent platform abuse from a technical standpoint."
WhatsApp has now also responded to the claims, with the Meta-owned firm saying it has seen no evidence that an attack has taken place. A 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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