WhatsApp security flaw lets experts scrape 3.5 billion user numbers


WhatsApp users may need to take extra steps to protect their account information following a potentially concerning discovery. A study by researchers at the University of Vienna revealed the app’s contact-discovery system enabled the collection of extensive WhatsApp user data at an unprecedented scale due to insufficient rate-limiting across global endpoints.

The researchers were able to gather huge amounts of phone numbers, public profile photos, account status text, business tags, and information tied to end-to-end encryption keys.

Read more…
Source: TechRadar News


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • A new security flaw in TheTruthSpy phone spyware is putting victims at risk

    August 25, 2025

    A stalkerware maker with a history of multiple data leaks and breaches now has a critical security vulnerability that allows anyone to take over any user account and steal their victim’s sensitive personal data, TechCrunch has confirmed. Independent security researcher Swarang Wade found the vulnerability, which allows anyone to reset the password of any user of ...

  • Massive data breach sees 16 million PayPal accounts leaked online

    August 22, 2025

    Hackers recently announced on a well-known forum that they were selling a dataset of 15.8 million stolen PayPal credentials, allegedly including login emails and plaintext passwords. The cybercriminals claim the information was stolen in May 2025, and the dataset contains not just emails and passwords but also associated URLs, making it easier for criminals to automate ...

  • Orange Belgium informs its customers about a cyberattack

    August 20, 2025

    At the end of July, Orange Belgium detected a cyberattack on one of its IT systems, resulting in unauthorised access to certain data from 850,000 customer accounts. No critical data was compromised: no passwords, email addresses, bank or financial details were hacked. However, the hacker gained access to one of our IT systems containing the following ...

  • Australia’s second-largest internet provider iiNet customers’ data exposed in cyber attack

    August 19, 2025

    Hundreds of thousands of customers of Australia’s second-largest internet provider have had their email addresses or phone numbers compromised in a cyber attack. A list of about 280,000 active email addresses and roughly 20,000 active landline phone numbers were extracted from iiNet’s order management system, parent company TPG said. Another 10,000-odd iiNet user names, street addresses ...

  • US spy chief says UK has dropped its Apple backdoor demand

    August 19, 2025

    The U.K has dropped its demand for special access to Apple’s cloud systems, or a “backdoor,” following negotiations with the Trump administration, according to U.S. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard. “As a result, the U.K. has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a ‘back door’ that would have enabled access to the protected ...

  • Workday hit by data breach targeting CRM systems

    August 18, 2025

    The US company was affected by a social engineering campaign that bears similarities to a recent wave of attacks by extortion group ShinyHunters. Enterprise software company Workday recently suffered a data breach after threat actors targeted a third-party customer relationship management (CRM) platform. According to a blogpost by the US company on Friday (15 August), threat ...