Attaullah Baig, who served as head of security for WhatsApp from 2021 to 2025, filed a lawsuit against Meta — the parent company of WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram — alleging that it overlooked internal vulnerabilities in data protection and compromised billions of users, The Guardian reported. However, according to France 24, Meta asserted that he was not the head of security but rather a lower-level engineer. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco on Sept. 8.
According to Baig, around 1,500 engineers had full access to user data, and the company failed to address the hacking and hijacking of more than 100,000 accounts daily. In addition, the filing claims that WhatsApp engineers could allegedly «move or steal user data,» including contact information, IP addresses and profile photos, «without detection or audit trail.»
Baig allegedly alerted senior executives and suggested fixes, but after his 2021 reports, he faced mounting retaliation, ranging from negative performance reviews and verbal warnings to his dismissal in February 2025.
In response, Carl Woog, WhatsApp’s vice president of communications, stated that the case reflected a pattern of former underperforming employees publicly misrepresenting the team’s hard work.
Meta noted in a statement that the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration had dismissed Baig’s initial complaint, finding that it had not retaliated against him.
Separately, in early September, Meta was ordered by the Singaporean police to improve its handling of impersonation scams, risking a fine of more than $700,000.
Previously, Kursiv.media covered the reasons behind governments requiring a switch from popular messaging solutions to domestically developed platforms.
