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New Delhi, 20 November (Read)। A major security flaw in WhatsApp has reportedly exposed the phone numbers of around 3.5 billion users across the world. Shockingly, Meta was alerted about this vulnerability back in 2017. According to security researchers, they were able to access billions of phone numbers using a simple trick through WhatsApp’s contact discovery feature.

Researchers from Austria revealed that they could check every possible number linked to WhatsApp and gain access to the phone numbers of active users globally. They also found that they could view the profile photos of nearly 57% of these users and read the profile text status of around 29%.

100 Million Numbers Checked Per Hour

Although the flaw was reported in 2017 by another researcher, Meta did not initially limit or restrict the speed of contact search requests made through WhatsApp’s web-based app. This allowed researchers to verify almost 100 million phone numbers every hour without obstacles.

Massive Global Database Created

Using this loophole, researchers built a huge database of 3.5 billion active WhatsApp accounts. They warned that if such vulnerability had been exploited by cybercriminals, it could have led to “the biggest data leak in history.” They noted that WhatsApp’s contact sync feature, meant to make it easier for users to discover each other, unintentionally enabled large-scale data exposure.

Meta Admits Vulnerability

Meta has acknowledged the issue but indicated that it was to a design decision that was overlooked. Speaking to Wired, Nitin Gupta, Vice President of Engineering at WhatsApp, said the study helped evaluate the effectiveness of anti-scraping protections. He added that there is no evidence of malicious misuse of the flaw. He also assured that WhatsApp’s default end-to-end encryption kept private messages fully secure, and researchers did not gain access to any non-public data.

Bhupendra Singh Chundawat is a seasoned technology journalist with over 22 years of experience in the media industry. He specializes in covering the global technology landscape, with a deep focus on manufacturing trends and the geopolitical impact on tech companies. Currently serving as the Editor at Readhis insights are shaped by decades of hands-on reporting and editorial leadership in the fast-evolving world of technology.