After news of an alleged WhatsApp data theft surfaced, Meta went public about it he had found no evidence of what happened in the app’s systems. Later, a Check Point Research analysis of the data in question indicated 360 million phone numbers from 108 countries. But a doubt remains in the air: what is the true origin of the data leak?
As researchers at Check Point Research explain, referring to a publication by Karol Paciorek, a member of the Polish Financial Sector Cybersecurity Incident Response Team (CSIRT KNF) in an update of their analysis, there is a possibility that the exposed data is actually “laundered” information from another leak.
According to an expert publication no Twitteranalyzing the data of 5,000 that allegedly belonged to 5,000 Polish WhatsApp users, The CSIRT KNF verified that the information was identical to that exposed in a Facebook leak in 2019.
In a statement, Check Point Research says that while it has found 360 million phone numbers, including over 2.2 million records from Portugalin the files you have analyzed, for now, you cannot confirm or prove that these numbers come from WhatsApp users.
However, specialists point out that when exposed telephone numbers are accessed, cybercriminals can perform a variety of phishing attacksa particular increase in cases of vishing, with fraudulent schemes via phone call, and smishing, via SMS is expected.
