WhatsApp Now Has 200 Crore Global Users, 50 Crore From India, But Security Questions Remain

We all love using WhatsApp -- the one app that we will find on almost every Indian¡¯s smartphone -- close to 500 million to be exact.

And now, a recent report has revealed that WhatsApp has surpassed over 2 billion active users -- basically 25 percent of total world¡¯s population is now using WhatsApp.

Reuters

Last month, WhatsApp crossed over 5 billion downloads all across the world -- becoming only the second app to actually do that, after WhatsApp. It also revealed that during New Year¡¯s WhatsApp users across the world sent over 100 billion messages in the form of texts, images and videos, shattering previous records.

While talking about their great achievement, the Facebook-owned brand on Wednesday shared this news with the world, while also emphasising the importance of end-to-end encryption that it is providing to its users.

"We know that the more we connect, the more we have to protect. As we conduct more of our lives online, protecting our conversations is more important than ever."

While it is great for WhatsApp to have such a large user base, the responsibility on their shoulders has gotten even heavier -- responsibility to provide security to its users, and measures to crackdown on practices that violate its terms of use -- stuff like bulk messaging, and more.

WhatsApp's security status

Every now and then we come across vulnerabilities in the texting app that can give hackers access to a user¡¯s personal data. Even after several updates, the vulnerabilities keep surfacing one after another.

Reuters

Also, how can we forget the hacking that occurred on the smartphone of the world¡¯s richest man, through a WhatsApp forward, where a ton of his confidential data was accessed by hackers. Earlier in October 2019, a security researcher called 'Awakened' found a bug on the popular messaging app -- a vulnerability in WhatsApp that could give hackers access to any phone, if they were to download an infected GIF image.

We also saw hackers keeping tabs on some Indian users using WhatsApp, where the Facebook-owned company also filed a lawsuit in the US against Israel¡¯s NSO group. This called for the Indian authorities to question the security of the texting app. They even created a texting app for people working in the government and stopped them from using WhatsApp.