WhatsApp suffers from a bug that allows message manipulation

WhatsApp suffers from a bug that allows message manipulation

WhatsApp’s instant messaging platform suffers from a flaw that allows for message manipulation, and cybersecurity experts who have found a way to hack WhatsApp and manipulate messages said Facebook has failed to remedy defects, a year after alerting the social network.

 

In August last year, they discovered new loopholes in which hackers could intercept and manipulate messages sent in private and group conversations, said researchers at Check Point.

 

These vulnerabilities allow attackers to create and disseminate false information from sources that are supposed to be reliable.

 

Problems relate to using the quote feature in a group conversation to change the sender’s identity, even if that person is not a member of the group, modifying the text of another person’s reply, and sending an anonymous private message as a public message to everyone in another group, so that when the target individual replies, their message is visible to everyone In the conversation.

 

Cybersecurity explained that WhatsApp, which Facebook bought in 2014, failed to solve the problems that still exist today.

 

Speaking at the Black Hat Internet Security Conference, Oded Vanunu, head of product vulnerability research at the security firm, said Facebook blamed WhatsApp for defects that could not be solved because of the platform’s architecture and architecture.

 

Check Point said it has launched a tool that exploits the vulnerabilities in WhatsApp and allows users to implement manipulations to increase awareness of the issue.

 

The cybersecurity team showed how the tool could be used to change the text within quoted messages, making it seem as if someone had written something they did not write.

 

“You can change what someone is saying completely, and you can deal with each character in the quote,” Vanunu said.

 

As of early 2018, Facebook’s proprietary messaging app has more than 1.5 billion users, with more than 1 billion groups and 65 billion messages sent daily.