WhatsApp security flaw exposes phone numbers of 3.5 billion users

WhatsApp is under scrutiny after researchers uncovered a security failure that exposed the phone numbers of around 3.5 billion users worldwide. According to reports, automated systems pull user details by simply checking number availability. According to the research team from the University of Vienna, the issue has existed since 2017, but Meta has not acknowledged it publicly until now. The app’s contact discovery function is the source of this vulnerability. This discovery has raised concerns because WhatsApp is one of the most used apps and is trusted for private chats and personal communication by people. Experts say such exposure of phone numbers in large numbers increases risks around privacy, spam, and targeted scams. Researchers view the profile photos of the 3.5 billion WhatsApp users While searching for flaws in WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption system, Austrian researchers discovered that the platform lacks rate-limiting protection to prevent abuse of its feature that checks...

https://www.cryptopolitan.com/whatsapp-vulnerability-leak-3-5-billion-user/