Is WhatsApp a Surveillance tool???

There have been serious security and privacy concerns over user’s privacy and data rights. WhatsApp anyway had a coloured and sketchy history as far as private chats and our data was concerned. Ever since it was acquired by Facebook (now Meta) in 2014, people have been concerned about how Facebook would deal with our private data. Meta has been under fire for a long time for sharing our data not only with government agencies but to private players as well. It is the reason behind why many other privacy and security focussed instant messaging apps, such as Telegram and Signal became so popular.

Telegram's founder Pavel Durov has accused WhatsApp of being a surveillance tool after hackers were able to hack into smartphones of various users, because of a vulnerability in WhatsApp's video sharing and playback features. The messaging app WhatsApp has been nothing but a surveillance tool for prying eyes.

Meta recently revealed that WhatsApp users can get hacked because of a vulnerability in their video downloading and playback, which hackers can use to get full access to just about everything that’s on the WhatsApp user’s phone. This not only includes your emails and photos, but also other communications, especially SMSes from your banks, and app data from your banking and payment apps.

Talking about WhatsApp's security and privacy, WhatsApp claims to provide end-to-end encryption for all texts, chats, and video calls. However, many times the app has been victim to bugs and security issues that often-raised questions about its privacy.

GB WhatsApp is a clone of the Meta-owned messaging app WhatsApp, which may be spying on Indian users and reading their chats, according to a report by ESET, the maker of NOD32 antivirus. The cloned third-party version of WhatsApp isn’t available on Google Play. Hence, the versions of the clone app available on various download websites are riddled with malware.

This is not the first time that the Telegram founder has dragged WhatsApp for being prone to security issues. Earlier, Durov said that "WhatsApp will never be secure" unless the company makes some fundamental changes to it. But till then he advised people to stay away from the app to save their smartphones from being hacked.

Last month WhatsApp issued a notice about a bug that was patched in newer versions of the app. The “critical” rated security vulnerability would have affected WhatsApp's Android app and allowed hackers to remotely send malware on a user's smartphone during a video call.

Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, President & CEO, VARINDIA