There was significant news coverage

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News: in late 2022 about an alleged "WhatsApp data leak" where a database containing nearly 500 million WhatsApp user phone numbers from 84 countries (including the US, UK, Egypt, Italy, and India) was put up for sale.

WhatsApp's Response: WhatsApp (and Meta) officially denied that this was a "data leak" directly from their systems. Instead, they suggested that these numbers were likely obtained through "scraping" – a process where phone numbers are collected from publicly visible sources (like social media profiles, public websites, or even by attempting to add large ranges of numbers to contacts and seeing which ones are on WhatsApp). While scraping violates WhatsApp's terms of service, it's a constant challenge for platforms.

Risks to Users: News articles consistently warn thailand whatsapp number data about the dangers if your number is in such a database:
Increased Spam & Scam Calls/Messages: You might receive more unsolicited messages (smishing) or calls (vishing) on WhatsApp, often related to fake job offers, investment schemes, or impersonations.

Targeted Phishing: Scammers can use your number to send more personalized phishing attempts.
Social Engineering: The number can be combined with other publicly available information to craft more convincing social engineering attacks.
Account Takeover Attempts: While the database itself doesn't give access to your account, it identifies you as a WhatsApp user, making you a target for account takeover scams (where scammers try to trick you into sharing your 6-digit verification code).
Third-Party "WhatsApp Number Checker" Tools:

What it is: These are services, often marketed to businesses, that claim to check if a list of phone numbers is active on WhatsApp. They do not provide "details" beyond verifying WhatsApp presence.
News: These tools are typically used for marketing purposes (e.g., verifying leads for WhatsApp Business campaigns to avoid sending messages to non-WhatsApp numbers). While not inherently malicious, their existence highlights how the public nature of WhatsApp's contact discovery feature (i.e., seeing who is on WhatsApp when you add a number) can be exploited by third-party services.
In essence, while WhatsApp maintains a legitimate and protected internal database of user phone numbers, the "WhatsApp number database" that makes news headlines often refers to illegally compiled lists of numbers obtained through scraping or other illicit means, which pose significant privacy and security risks to users.