WhatsApp had a massive security flaw that put phone numbers of 3.5 billion users at risk: here’s what happened

A security flaw on WhatsApp has led to all of the approximately 3.5 billion phone numbers on the platform being compromised, according to researchers from the University of Vienna. The researchers further say that they were able to access profile photos of users in 57% of the cases and even the text on their profiles for 29% of the users.

Notably, WhatsApp and its parent company Meta were made aware of the vulnerability by a different research in 2017, but the company failed to take appropriate action on it.