WhatsApp group chats can be hacked: Researchers
What's the story
A team of German cryptographers has discovered that anyone who is in control of WhatsApp's servers can infiltrate group chats despite the latter being end-to-end encrypted.
This means that cyber criminals can add new people to WhatsApp group chats without the permission of the group admin, giving them access to unwarranted information.
Here's more on the security flaw.
Details
More on the researchers and the research
The team of researchers reportedly presented their findings on encrypted messaging apps at the Real World Crypto security conference that recently took place in Zurich, Switzerland.
They claim that the security level of such apps with regard to group chats is lesser than what encryption makes it seem like.
Other apps identified with the same flaw were Signal and Threema.
Theoretical Finding
However, accessing WhatsApp servers is not simple
However, it should also be noted that it is not easy to get hold of WhatsApp servers and can only be done by either the employees of the company, the government after the due permission of the company, or extremely sophisticated hackers.
The research only aims to bring to light the basic flaw in the premise of end-to-end encryption in theory.
Quote
No one can secretly add a member to groups: WhatsApp
WhatsApp emphasized that in such a situation, users will still know of an unknown addition to the group. It said, "Existing members are notified when new people are added to a group. We built WhatsApp so group messages cannot be sent to a hidden user."
Details
WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption was a major step towards user protection
Two years ago on April 5, 2016, WhatsApp had announced end-to-end encryption for every form of communication on the platform including calls, media content, and text messages.
While some people had supported the move and advocated users' right to privacy, others did not agree with the platform getting fully encrypted, fearing its undue use by anti-social elements.