{"id":316660,"date":"2019-05-14T08:34:02","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T06:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=316660"},"modified":"2019-05-14T08:34:02","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T06:34:02","slug":"whatsapp-warns-of-major-security-vulnerability-says-you-should-update-your-app-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/316660\/whatsapp-warns-of-major-security-vulnerability-says-you-should-update-your-app-now\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp warns of major security vulnerability &#8211; says you should update your app now"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"\" data-block=\"true\" data-editor=\"e76ja\" data-offset-key=\"8esbm-0-0\">\n<div class=\"public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr\" data-offset-key=\"8esbm-0-0\"><span class=\"hardreadability\"><span data-offset-key=\"8esbm-0-0\">WhatsApp has asked its users to update to the latest version of its mobile app due to a major security vulnerability<\/span><\/span><span data-offset-key=\"8esbm-1-0\">. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/web.facebook.com\/security\/advisories\/cve-2019-3568?_rdc=1&amp;_rdr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">statement<\/a><\/strong>, the company said that the vulnerability in WhatsApp&#8217;s Voice over IP (VOIP) allowed for remote code to be executed sent to a target phone number.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;WhatsApp encourages people to upgrade to the latest version of our app, as well as keep their mobile operating system up to date, to protect against potential targeted exploits designed to compromise information stored on mobile devices,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/4da1117e-756c-11e9-be7d-6d846537acab\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Financial Times<\/a> &#8211; <\/strong>which first reported on the security flaw &#8211; said that the vulnerability allows spyware to be injected into a user\u2019s phone by an outside attacker.<\/p>\n<p>Attackers could send the malicious code to a target\u2019s device by calling the user &#8211; infecting the phone irrespective of whether or not the recipient answered the call.<\/p>\n<p>Once installed, the software can reportedly turn on a phone\u2019s camera and mic, scan emails and messages, and collect the user\u2019s location data.<\/p>\n<p>Logs of the incoming calls were often erased, meaning there was no trace of the call taking place.<\/p>\n<p>The spyware is believed to have been developed by the Israeli cyber intelligence company NSO Group.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/305528\/new-features-coming-to-whatsapp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New features coming to WhatsApp<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WhatsApp has asked its users to update to the latest version of its mobile app due to a major security vulnerability. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":245533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,2118],"class_list":["post-316660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316660"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":316682,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316660\/revisions\/316682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}