{"id":333042,"date":"2019-12-18T08:42:31","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T06:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=333042"},"modified":"2019-12-18T08:52:20","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T06:52:20","slug":"whatsapp-bug-lets-hackers-crash-your-app-with-a-single-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/333042-whatsapp-bug-lets-hackers-crash-your-app-with-a-single-message.html","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp bug lets hackers crash your app with a single message"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recently-discovered WhatsApp security vulnerability can make the app unusable, according to security researchers at <a href=\"https:\/\/research.checkpoint.com\/2019\/breakingapp-whatsapp-crash-data-loss-bug\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Check Point<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The issue affects both Android and iOS versions of WhatsApp.<\/p>\n<p>Using a debugging tool in the browser version of WhatsApp, malicious actors can manipulate the WhatsApp protocol and create a specially-crafted message.<\/p>\n<p>The exploit is then performed by sending this message to a group chat. Once opened, the message causes the recipient&#8217;s app to crash.<\/p>\n<p>Reopening the app will only result in another crash, while the chat history and data shared in the group is totally wiped out.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Fixing the issue<\/h3>\n<p>The only remedy for the crash is to uninstall, redownload and reinstall WhatsApp.<\/p>\n<p>Even after the reinstall, communication on the group is no longer possible.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the group will need to be deleted to prevent WhatsApp from crashing again.<\/p>\n<p>Check Point identified the susceptibility in August 2019 and informed the WhatsApp&#8217;s developers of the issue, after which an update was rolled out to fix the bug.<\/p>\n<p>For iOS, WhatsApp version 2.19.120 includes the fix, while Android version 2.19.246 and above is no longer affected.<\/p>\n<p>Users are encouraged to update their app if they have an older version.<\/p>\n<p>Check Point previously uncovered <a href=\"https:\/\/research.checkpoint.com\/2019\/black-hat-2019-whatsapp-protocol-decryption-for-chat-manipulation-and-more\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>another vulnerability<\/strong><\/a> in the app which would allow the manipulation of messages in both private and group conversations.<\/p>\n<p>This could allow actors to change the identity of a sender and modify the content of replies.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/software\/332488-whatsapp-drops-support-for-older-phones.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">WhatsApp drops support for older phones<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recently-discovered WhatsApp security vulnerability can make the app unusable, according to security researchers at Check Point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":168223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[54479,62320,2594],"class_list":["post-333042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-group-chats","tag-security-bug","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333042"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333044,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333042\/revisions\/333044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}