WhatsApp security flaw lets experts scrape 3.5 billion user numbers


WhatsApp users may need to take extra steps to protect their account information following a potentially concerning discovery. A study by researchers at the University of Vienna revealed the app’s contact-discovery system enabled the collection of extensive WhatsApp user data at an unprecedented scale due to insufficient rate-limiting across global endpoints.

The researchers were able to gather huge amounts of phone numbers, public profile photos, account status text, business tags, and information tied to end-to-end encryption keys.

Read more…
Source: TechRadar News


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