WhatsApp hasn't been the most secure messenger, and the recent discovery just takes things to a whole new level.
On August 7th, in a briefing at the annual Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, researchers from Israeli security company 'Check Point' shed light on WhatsApp's security vulnerabilities where one could hack the chat and change the text of a message as well as the identity of the sender.?
Reuters
What's worse is that these vulnerabilities are on WhatsApp since a year, and WhatsApp hasn't really done anything for it.?
These vulnerabilities allow hackers to alter messages in both public and private conversations. This could allow spreading of? misinformation appearing to be from a known source.?
According to Check Point Software Technologies, there are in total three ways a text message can be altered.
One way used the "quotation" option in a group chat to alter the way a sender appears. A second method allows the hacker to completely change the text a person's reply in the chat.
The third one is one of the scariest of the two. This method would have let a person send a private message to another group chat member in the avatar of a public message to all, so when the targeted individual replies, it would be visible to everyone in the conversation. Thankfully,WhatsApp has fixed this issue.
Reuters
These vulnerabilities, if exploited, would not only impact the privacy of the WhatsApp users, it would also lead to spreading of fake news among other harmful applications.?
Victor Chebyshev, security researcher at Kaspersky commented on this situation, "WhatsApp is the most popular instant messenger in the world. These security flaws found in the app are indeed very serious, as they could result in group chat participants being humiliated by false messages. "
He further added, "Users should be very careful when contributing to group chats. In case of any doubt during correspondence, confirm the author's identity in a private chat.?