Technical consultant claims to have discovered a flaw in the app, which he believes hackers can exploit to gain access to users' personal information
Washington: Despite the app being somewhat solid and good to use, it is bothered with some security flaws, which hackers can exploit to access a user’s messaging history.
The claim comes from technical consultant Bas Bosschert, with over 10 years of experience with Linux and Unix, who claims to have recently discovered the flaw.
Given that the app stores your chat history on your phone’s memory, this will allow hackers to private information saved on your handset, which can then be downloaded, saved onto another device and possibly misused as well.
What makes this flaw so scary is that the code could be added to any type of app. For example, Bosschert claims the code could be added to games so that when the game shows a loading screen, a user’s WhatsApp history is being uploaded to the hacker’s database simultaneously.
Though Google has attempted to protect its users by banning apps that collect information without the user’s knowledge, it seems impossible to block all the perpetrators.
The safest way users can protect themselves is by checking app’s permissions before downloading it. Avoiding third party from app stores might be a good idea too.
It is to be seen what measures will WhatsApp implement to address these concerns, but hopefully something will be done soon for the sake of their users’ privacy.
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