Archive for WhatsApp

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BREAKING: Google, WhatsApp And Twitter Are Down Too

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on March 5, 2024 by itnerd

Things seem to be getting worse. On top of this outage and this outage that I just reported on, it seems that Down Detector are now reporting that WhatsApp and Twitter are also down:

I just tested Twitter, Google and WhatsApp and found no issues. But others aren’t so lucky apparently. I’ll be keeping a close eye on Down Detector to see what else breaks today.

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WhatsApp Slapped With $267 Million USD Fine

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 2, 2021 by itnerd

Bad news for WhatsApp. They apparently didn’t fully explain to Europeans how it uses their data as called for by EU privacy law according to Ireland’s Data Protection Commission. WhatsApp’s punishment? The regulator hit the messaging app with a fine of 225 million euros which about $267 million USD:

Partly at issue is how WhatsApp share information with parent company Facebook, according to the commission. The decision brings an end to a GDPR inquiry the privacy regulator started in December 2018. WhatsApp said it disagrees with the decision and plans to appeal. “We have worked to ensure the information we provide is transparent and comprehensive and will continue to do so,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said via email.

Fun fact: WhatsApp pulled in about $5 to $10 billion last year. Thus while this fine is significant, it’s still pocket change to WhatsApp. But the other side of that coin is that it does send a message that the EU is serious about this sort of thing. But you know that.

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Signal Reports Growing Pains As New Users Surge Due To WhatsApp Terms Of Service Change

Posted in Commentary with tags , on January 7, 2021 by itnerd

Signal, an encrypted messaging app that competes with other services including Facebook’s WhatsApp, said Thursday that verification codes used to create new accounts were delayed because of a flood of new users. In other words, they are suffering growing pains.

“We are working with carriers to resolve this as quickly as possible,” the non-profit foundation said in a tweet. “Hang in there.” The surge came just hours after Elon Musk endorsed the service and amid reported changes to WhatsApp’s terms of service.

The changes to WhatsApp’s terms of service are that Facebook will get to see a lot of info that it never got to see before in an attempt to monetize WhatsApp. That of course has spooked WhatsApp users as it should given that Facebook isn’t exactly known for being the best when it comes to how it uses the data that it has on you. Or put another way, nobody trusts Facebook. In an ideal world, this would get Facebook’s attention and they would address their data usage issues. But I don’t expect that to happen. Thus Facebook deserves to have its user base massively drop.

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Shadowy NSO Group Fails To Show In Court To Defend Itself From Charges That It Hacked Smartphones Via WhatsApp

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 9, 2020 by itnerd

Readers of my blog may have heard me talk about The NSO Group. This is a company based in Israel that acquires exploits and sells them to some pretty repressive regimes for the purposes of spying on their citizens and those who are critical of said regimes. They’ve been fingered as being behind exploits in iOS that allegedly ensnared Jeff Bezos and WhatsApp. And it’s the latter that made Facebook who owns WhatsApp sue the NSO Group after a an exploit in WhatsApp was used to go after some dissidents and journalists. The NSO Group at the time promised to “vigorously” defend itself in court. The thing is that according to this story in Harretz, The NSO Group didn’t show up:

WhatsApp has taken a step toward winning its widely publicized lawsuit against the NSO Group after the Israeli spyware merchant failed to show up in court, according to a notice of default entered Monday in California.

And:

NSO promised to “vigorously fight” the allegations, but the firm was a no-show in the Northern District of California, where the case was filed.

Legal documents filed by WhatsApp detail repeated efforts to serve the company with legal documents, including emails to senior executives, FedEx-delivered copies to NSO board members, and even a hand-delivered copy of the suit left with NSO cofounder Omri Lavie’s wife at their New Jersey home.

Though a report in Bloomberg has the company singing a different tune:

“WhatsApp prematurely moved for default before properly serving NSO Group with the lawsuit,” a spokesman for the Israeli company said in a statement. “As NSO Group has not been formally served, this default notice will not stand. We cannot comment further about this ongoing matter.”

Well, that’s an interesting statement from a company who could have said the above in court but chose not to for whatever reason. In any case, expect the screws to turn on The NSO Group as I suspect it’s going to get harder and harder for them to avoid having to show up in court and answer questions about what they do and who they sell to.

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WhatsApp Users Need To Update The App NOW To Address An Exploit That Is Being Used For Spying

Posted in Commentary with tags on May 14, 2019 by itnerd

If you use WhatsApp, you should ensure that you’re running the absolute latest version. Because if you’re not, the potential exists for you to be spied on according to the BBC:

Hackers were able to remotely install surveillance software on phones and other devices using a major vulnerability in messaging app WhatsApp, it has been confirmed.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, said the attack targeted a “select number” of users, and was orchestrated by “an advanced cyber actor”.

A fix was rolled out on Friday.

On Monday, WhatsApp urged all of its 1.5 billion users to update their apps as an added precaution.

To ensure that you’re safe from this exploit, you need to be running at least either of the following:

  • If you’re on team Android, the latest WhatsApp version is 2.19.134
  • If you’re on team Apple, the latest WhatsApp version is 2.19.51

Other specific details of this exploit are still unknown. But the people behind this are likely The NSO Group who are known to be selling software that takes advantage of exploits like these to allow for cyber attacks on journalists, dissidents and activists. They of course won’t take responsibility for this. But you can bet now that this exploit is closed, they are looking for others to take advantage of.

 

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Founder Of WhatsApp Quits Facebook Over Data Sharing Issues

Posted in Commentary with tags , on May 1, 2018 by itnerd

Jan Koum who co-founded WhatsApp announced late yesterday that he will be leaving the company. While Koum himself doesn’t elaborate on reasoning for the departure, a report from The Washington Post indicates that the decision comes amid growing discord with WhatsApp parent company, Facebook:

The billionaire chief executive of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, is planning to leave the company after clashing with its parent, Facebook, over the popular messaging service’s strategy and Facebook’s attempts to use its personal data and weaken its encryption, according to people familiar with internal discussions.

Specifically, here’s the reason for him leaving. When WhatsApp was bought by Facebook, the founders were told that WhatsApp would remain independent…. But:

Eighteen months later, the promise not to share data evaporated. Facebook pushed WhatsApp to change its terms of service to give the social network access to the phone numbers of WhatsApp users, along with analytics such as what devices and operating systems people were using.

Well, this is a good reason to dump WhatsApp. Clearly the more Facebook says that they’re changing, the reality is they aren’t changing. Which means that if you want secure messaging with no privacy issues, you might want to take a look at Telegram, BBM or Signal.

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WhatsApp Now Supports Apple CarPlay

Posted in Commentary with tags , on January 29, 2018 by itnerd

I noticed something last night when I was out in the car. I had updated to the latest version of WhatsApp earlier in the day which only listed “bug fixes” in the change log. But when I plugged my iPhone into my vehicle, this popped up on CarPlay:

IMG_1197.jpg

WhatsApp had made an appearance in Apple CarPlay. That was kind of a surprise. I got a friend to help me to test it out and I found the following:

  • Siri will notify me when I have received a new WhatsApp message.
  • Siri can read messages.
  • I can now send WhatsApp Messages via Siri and it works the same way as the built in messages app.

This is a big deal as up until now, no other messaging app has ever worked in CarPlay as far as I know. I hope that means that other messaging apps like Skype and the like will make an appearance in CarPlay as well.

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WhatsApp May Be Blocked In China

Posted in Commentary with tags , on July 19, 2017 by itnerd

The New York Times is reporting that popular messaging service WhatsApp appears t be blocked in China:

The blocks against WhatsApp originated with the government, according to a person familiar with the situation who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the disruption. Security experts also verified that the partial disruption in WhatsApp started with China’s internet filters.

“According to the analysis that we ran today on WhatsApp’s infrastructure, it seems that the Great Firewall is imposing censorship that selectively targets WhatsApp functionalities,” said Nadim Kobeissi, an applied cryptographer at Symbolic Software, a cryptography research start-up.

This isn’t trivial as WhatsApp has something in the area of 1.2 billion users worldwide. Thus this is going to get a lot of attention. The question is, will the Chinese government care about the blowback from this? We’ll have to watch and see.

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WhatsApp & Telegram Flaw Allows Hijacking Of Accounts…. But Don’t Worry…It’s Fixed

Posted in Commentary with tags , on March 16, 2017 by itnerd

A flaw in in the web version of Telegram and WhatsApp has been discovered that via a specially crafted image, allows a hacker to hijack the account. The flaw was discovered by CheckPoint and here’s what you need to know:

The exploitation of this vulnerability starts with the attacker sending an innocent looking file to the victim, which contains malicious code.

The file can be modified to contain attractive content to raise the chances a user will open it. In WhatsApp, once the user clicks to open the image, the malicious file allows the attacker to access the local storage, where user data is stored. In Telegram, the user should click again to open a new tab, in order for the attacker to access local storage. From that point, the attacker can gain full access to the user’s account and account data. The attacker can then send the malicious file to the all victim’s contacts, opening a dangerous door to a potentially widespread attack over the WhatsApp and Telegram networks.

Since messages were encrypted without being validated first, WhatsApp and Telegram were blind to the content, thus making them unable to prevent malicious content from being sent.

For those of you who are more visual, here’s a video of the pwnage in action:

 

The good news is that this is already fixed by both parties. And better yet, the phone app appears not to be affected. Still, I’d advise that users of either web app avoid opening suspicious files and links from unknown users and flush your browser cache every once in a while.

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WhatsApp Now Has Two Step Verification

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 10, 2017 by itnerd

WhatsApp is rolling out a two-step verification feature starting today. This feature will allow users to securely verify their number with a custom-generated six-digit passcode whenever they install the app on a new device.

To enable this feature, do the following:

  • Open the app
  • Tap Settings
  • Tap Account
  • Tap Two-step verification
  • Tap Enable

You will then be asked if you want to enter your email address. This is used by WhatsApp to send a link via email to disable two-step verification in case the six-digit passcode is forgotten, and also to help safeguard the account. But to help you remember the passcode, you’ll be asked for it from time to time and you can’t opt out of that.

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