Is nothing sacred? Just when much of the world had settled on WhatsApp as a communications medium of choice, largely because they all thought it would be more secure, well, … it’s apparently not. The BBC reported yesterday that hackers recently succeeded in remotely installing surveillance software on phones and other devices using a major vulnerability in the instant messaging and calling app, now owned by Facebook. Apparently, Facebook was fairly fast in rolling out a fix (last Friday), but the tech community was unimpressed because Facebook also (conveniently) failed to mention that it had even happened, even though they were aware of it. Apparently, the hack enabled perpetrators to read messages (and who knows what else) of the host phone from afar. Learn more at…
www.bbc.com/news/technology-48262681
Honestly, we’ve never been that thrilled with WhatsApp. We hated it less once they began allowing us to use it without opening up the phone’s entire address book to the app. But we have a hunch that most people still do, because they probably aren’t aware that they don’t have to. As a result, all the contacts in your phone (if you opened them to WhatsApp) were conceivably available to the hackers in broad daylight. Ouch. (Thanks to Tina for bringing this news to our attention.)
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