WhatsApp, possibly the most popular messaging service in the world which is owned by Meta-Facebook, was hacked. Or was it? The hack may have left 500 million people – or messages – at risk when using a service that promises its users end to end encryption at all time. That is if the report about the hack prove true. As of this post only one website claims to have received information confirming the hack.
According to a report in Cybernews, WhatsApp users from 84 countries had their data stolen, including as many as 32 million users from the US alone, and whoever took it is offering to sell private information to the highest bidder. This could include bank account information and even government secrets.
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Cybernews reported that 45 million in Egyptians were hacked, 35 million people in Italy, 29 million of the accounts hacked were in Saudi Arabia, 20 million in France and 20 million in Turkey. And over 11 million UK citizens’ phones were allegedly hacked too. But the website offered no proof.
Some are saying that if true, the WhatsApp hack would constitute the worst such hack of all time. But is it true?
Well Meta-Facebook, the parent company of WhatsApp, has not commented about the reports. But Cybernews said that the hackers contacted the publication and revealed how much money they are charging for the hacked materials. But this does not prove that they necessarily have as much hacked information as they claim.
WhatsApp was founded by Jewish Ukrainian born, American raised, billionaire Jan Koum in 2009. In 2014 he got $9 billion in the deal when Facebook took over WhatsApp for $22 billion in cash and stock. And since then Jan Koum has put that money to good use. He now controls a multi-billion-dollar charitable foundation.
Jan Koum, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, was once reduced to relying on welfare. As a teen, his family lived on food stamps. He was born in Kyiv in 1976, Koum got his start in high tech working at Ernst & Young and later went over to work for Yahoo. He applied to work at Facebook in its early days, but was rejected. And then when the iPhones started rolling out he realized the potential for apps. Koum created a new messaging app, WhatsApp, and the rest is history.
