Did You Know Your WhatsApp Messages Can Be Altered?

What if you discover that your previously delivered message is sent to someone with a different identity? Or what if the content of your message is manipulated? Sounds shocking, right? But it is true!

According to a cybersecurity company, scammers can actually alter the content or the identity of a sender of a message in WhatsApp. The world most widely used Facebook-owned platform with 1.5 billion users can be hacked by a scammer, and you will never know when your message will be hacked by them.

How they make it happen?

There is a feature in WhatsApp that allows users to display a previous message and reply to it. This feature opens the door for the hackers who create a hacked version of the WhatsApp and just alter the quote. It gives an impression that someone had sent a message when in reality they did not. As per the head of vulnerability research at Check Point, it can be tricky in group chats where multiple messages come in at once, and it will be difficult to figure out what someone has actually said.

Whatsapp’s Take on the Issue

Although WhatsApp acknowledged that scammers could manipulate the quote feature, they disagree that it is a fault. As per the company, preventing such deception by validating every message can hamper the privacy risk or bog down the service. The issue is quite similar to the email alteration, and they are working on the issue to remove fake WhatsApp application to spoof the service. According to WhatsApp, 90 % of the messages on it are sent in one-on-one conversations, and the majority of groups include six or less member, so it is less likely for an unknown person to gain access to a conversation to scam other users.

As far as the quote feature is concerned, the user can verify a quote message by clicking on it. This will take the user to the point when the message was delivered unless it was removed or the person was not a member of the chat group at that time.

Conclusion

Although the issue is now limited to a discussion among security experts, you still need to be careful about what you send over WhatsApp. Alternatively, you might want to use tools like WebEagle that protect your online identity.

What do you think about the issue? Comment below.