Syrian group claims to have hacked phone service Truecaller

A Syrian group claimed on Thursday to have hacked the servers of Truecaller, the crowd-sourced online phone-book service that claims to be the world's largest collaborative phone directory.

The Syrian Electronic Army said it had accessed seven databases, including the main database that represents 450 GB of data.

Saying they took advantage of an out-of-date Wordpress system, the hackers claim to have data of over a million users with their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Gmail accounts.

Truecaller however denied that users' data could be in danger, saying that the hackers had failed to obtain the vital pass-keys without which they cannot access the data they have hacked into.

''Truecaller does not store passwords, credit card information, or any other sensitive information about our users,'' the company said in a statement. ''It is false information that attackers were able to access our user's Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media passwords.''

The company would not confirm if hackers breached the site via a Wordpress installation.

Truecaller works by users agreeing to share their phone books with the service. It also gets information from various white pages and yellow pages services. This enables Truecaller to display the name of the caller if it is not saved in the recipient's phone book.

Truecaller has amassed nearly a billion phone numbers in less than four years with help from its more than 20 million users, mostly in Europe and Asia.

Users on most of Truecaller's smartphone apps can upload their phone's contacts to help populate the directory. That especially helps the company get hold of details for people with prepaid phone accounts.