Facebook messaging service Whatsapp he is very popular. In January, it was the most popular app vschangeof messages on the planet, with more than 600 million active users, and by April it reached 800 million active users.
Of course, the small application that Facebook has paid a lot of money to acquire it has, at times, had little privacy issues.
The latest WhatsApp issue allows each of the 800 million active accounts to be violated without the need for the password.
The technical knowledge required: about zero.
Basically, all you need to do is know the target phone number and be able to access their phone - even if it is locked - for a few seconds.
It does not matter if the victim has locked the screen in his phone as it will not prevent the malicious user from answering the authentication call and changing the secret PIN needed to access the Whatsapp account.
Hacker News notes that this is much easier to do in one iPhone which has the personal assistant Siri enabled on the screen locking, since Siri can be persuaded to reveal any contact information or notifications, “essentially giving everyone access to their phone number without the need for a security PIN. "
I contacted Facebook to see if she had any comments about it and will update the story if someone gets back to me.
This vulnerability is a very good reminder not to leave your devices exposed!
And if you have an iPhone, immediately disable Siri on the lock screen.