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WhatsApp Security Flaw Exposes 3.5 Billion User Phone Numbers
WhatsApp Security Flaw Exposes 3.5 Billion User Phone Numbers
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BTCCSquare news:
A critical vulnerability in WhatsApp's contact discovery function has left 3.5 billion user phone numbers exposed since 2017, according to researchers from the University of Vienna. The flaw, which Meta has yet to publicly acknowledge, allows unchecked extraction of registered numbers—30 million U.S. numbers were harvested in just 30 minutes during testing.
Privacy risks escalate as 57% of affected users had profile photos publicly visible, while 29% exposed profile text. The absence of rate-limiting protections enables mass scraping, raising concerns about spam, targeted scams, and broader exploitation by malicious actors.
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