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WhatsApp phone numbers of about 500 mn users leaked

Upon investigation, the researchers found that all of them were active WhatsApp users…reports Asian Lite News

WhatsApp phone numbers of 487 million users have been stolen and put on sale on a “well-known” hacking community forum, the media reported.

According to Cybernews, the dataset allegedly contains WhatsApp user data from 84 countries and phone numbers of over 32 million users from the US, 11 million from the UK, and 10 million from Russia.

The hacker claims to have a significant number of phone numbers belonging to the citizens of Egypt (45 million), Italy (35 million), Saudi Arabia (29 million), France (20 million), and Turkey (20 million).

The hacker was selling the US dataset for $7,000, the UK for $2,500, and Germany for $2,000, according to the report.

Cybernews researchers were able to get in touch with the hacker and also able to collect a sample of the data in which they found out that the shared sample contained 1,097 UK and 817 US user numbers.

Upon investigation, the researchers found that all of them were active WhatsApp users.

However, the hacker did not specify how they obtained the data, suggesting they “used their strategy,” and that all the numbers belong to WhatsApp users, said the report.

This database can be used by hackers for spamming, phishing attempts, identity theft, and other cybercriminal activities.

WhatsApp provides numerous privacy settings, such as hiding status and profile pictures, that users can enable to protect themselves from prying eyes.

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Govt to probe how Hancock footage got leaked

“What Matt did was wrong, he acknowledged that, it’s why he apologised immediately for his behaviour and acknowledged what he did was wrong,” Lewis said…reports Asian Lite News.

Britain’s health ministry has announced plans to investigate how the CCTV footage of former health secretary Matt Hancock embracing his aide was leaked to the press.

Conservative Party Member of Parliament Brandon Lewis said the department will be launching an internal investigation into the matter to find out how the footage, which captured the former health secretary and his aide Gina Coladangelo embracing in the halls of Whitehall, was leaked.

Hancock’s party colleague also said that the disgraced minister had accepted his mistake and duly apologised, but his actions had rendered his position indefensible, taking away attention from the government’s wider efforts to combat the ongoing pandemic.

“What Matt did was wrong, he acknowledged that, it’s why he apologised immediately for his behaviour and acknowledged what he did was wrong,” Lewis said.

“It’s ultimately why he’s taken the decision that his position was untenable and distracting from the wider work we all have to do … to move out of the pandemic,” he added.

Hancock resigned on Saturday after being accused of breaking coronavirus restrictions his ministry had imposed at the time of the incident in early May when a deadly mutant strain of the virus was in circulation, and people living in separate households were banned from initiating intimate contact.

The opposition Labour Party slammed Hancock for breaking coronavirus restrictions, raised questions about appointment processes in the government and the use of taxpayer’s money in ruminating government personnel after news emerged of Hancock and Coladangelo being university friends.

Hancock on his part apologised to the general public for breaching “the social-distancing guidance”. He was replaced by Sajid Javid, former chancellor of the exchequer, marking the second-high profile exit in the Boris Johnson-led government.

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