Whatsapp security | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

In-short conclusion—Whatsapp service or its 45-days deletion policy doesn't seem to have a bug. For detailed logical explanation, please read below. An Amazon employee earlier today tweeted details about an incident that many suggest could be a sign of a huge privacy bug in the most popular end-to-end encrypted Whatsapp messaging app that could expose some of your secret messages under certain circumstances. According to Abby Fuller, she found some mysterious messages on WhatsApp, notably not associated with her contacts, immediately after she created a new account with the messaging app on her brand new phone using a new number for the very first time. Fuller believes that the mysteriously appeared content on her new account was the message history associated with the WhatsApp account of the previous owner of the same SIM/mobile number, which WhatsApp pushed to her phone. Since for WhatsApp, your phone number is your username and password is the OTP it sends to that n...

Cybercriminals are known to take advantage of everything that's popular among people in order to spread malware, and Google's official Play Store has always proved no less than an excellent place for hackers to get their job done. Yesterday some users spotted a fake version of the most popular WhatsApp messaging app for Android on the official Google Play Store that has already tricked more than one million users into downloading it. Dubbed Update WhatsApp Messenger , came from an app developer who pretended to be the actual WhatsApp service with the developer title "WhatsApp Inc."—the same title the actual WhatsApp messenger uses on Google Play. You might be wondering how the sneaky app developer was able to use the same title as the legitimate Facebook-owned maker of the messaging client—thanks to a Unicode character space. The app maker added a Unicode character space after the actual WhatsApp Inc. name, which in computer code reads WhatsApp+Inc%C2%A0 . ...

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Popular instant messaging app WhatsApp has already been struggling for its existence in China ever since July when Chinese government blocked its users from sending photos and videos over the app. Now, it appears that China has largely blocked Facebook-owned WhatsApp in its latest step to tighten censorship as the country prepares for a major Communist Party gathering next month. Yes, WhatsApp no longer works in the country at all. China has a long history of blocking and limiting access to web services, especially social networks and Western-owned sites through its Great Firewall . The service currently blocks some 171 out of the world's leading websites, including Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and many Google services in mainland China. And now, it is WhatsApp. Although it's unclear how long the messaging app may remain inaccessible in the country, according to Symbolic Software, a Paris-based research firm that monitors WhatsApp's situation in Chi...

The government has once again started asking for backdoor in encrypted services, arguing that it can not give enough security to its citizens because the terrorists are using encrypted apps to communicate and plot an attack. Following last week's terrorist attack in London, the UK government is accusing technology firms to give terrorists "a place to hide," saying Intelligence agencies must have access to encrypted messaging applications such as WhatsApp to prevent such attacks. According to authorities , the killer, Khalid Masood, 52, was active on WhatsApp messaging app just two minutes before he attacked Britain's Houses of Parliament in Westminster that killed four people. Here's what Amber Rudd, Britain's Home Secretary said while speaking at BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday: "We need to make sure that organizations like WhatsApp, and there are plenty of others like that, don't provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate ...

WhatsApp has introduced a new security feature that fixes a loophole in the popular messaging platform, which if exploited, could allow an attacker to hijack victim's account with just knowing the victim's phone number and some hacking skills. The attack does not exploit any vulnerability in WhatsApp; instead, it relies on the way the account setup mechanism works. WhatsApp allows users to sign up to the app using their phone number, so if an attacker wants to hijack your WhatsApp account, they would require an OTP (One time password) send to your phone number. The attacker can grab this OTP by diverting the SMS containing the passcode to their own computer or phone, using either a malicious app or SS7 vulnerability , and then log into the victim's WhatsApp account. The attack even works in case the phone is locked. In August, Iranian state-sponsored hackers reportedly hijacked over dozens of Telegram accounts belonging to activists and journalists by exploiting a ...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released its annual report card of tech companies for 2015 based upon how much they keep your personal data secure from government snoops. And the Worst Companies Award goes to… At&T WhatsApp Verizon Yes, you heard right! WhatsApp is one of the three worst companies at protecting its users' data so if you are concerned about your data privacy, you should think twice before using WhatsApp. The EFF released its latest Who Has Your Back report based on 5 basic criteria that included: Follows Industry Accepted Best Practices Tells Users About Government Data Demands Discloses Policies on Data Retention Discloses Government Content Removal Requests Pro-user Public Policy: opposes backdoors The prominent privacy advocacy group analysed 24 companies in total, and among them AT&T, Verizon and WhatsApp came out to be the worst companies at protecting its users' data. Where Verizon met two criteria of the EFF...

Several reports from the popular news websites had suggested that WhatsApp , the widely popular messaging application, is working on a new version of its instant messaging client, called  WhatsApp PLUS , in order to provide its users a lot of handy new features. However the news seems to be completely fake!! WhatsApp Plus has already been launched a long ago and is not at all genuine as it is not associated with the Facebook-owned WhatsApp. Many users claimed to have already used WhatsApp Plus before. The latest news reports insist that WhatsApp Plus will bring 700 new themes and more number of emoticons, as well as will provide users with an option to change the font, and color among other things in an attempt to make the app look and feel more personalized. Moreover, the app will provide better privacy compared to the existing one. But, here you need to have a second thought. If we talk about better privacy, the only genuine report about WhatsApp came late last ye...

If you haven't heard by now, Facebook just made its biggest move ever, buying the messaging service WhatsApp in a deal worth some $19 billion. That's 19 times what Facebook paid for Instagram two years ago. The WhatsApp Service run by the team of just 32 engineers, handles more than 50 Billion messages daily, and approx 385 million active users. WhatsApp acquisition has also brought out fresh criticism over security for the billions of messages delivered on the platform. Security Researcher at Praetorian Labs identified several SSL-related security issues in WhatsApp application using Project Neptune , a mobile application security testing platform. " WhatsApp communication between your phone and our server is fully encrypted. We do not store your chat history on our servers. Once delivered successfully to your phone, chat messages are removed from our system ." Company said in a blog post . But researchers found that WhatsApp is vulnerable to Man-in-theMiddl...