Whatsapp has currently fixed a Vulnerability that Allow hackers crash whatsapp groups and the app in general, as reported by by Check Point Research, this bug which was discovered in August this year, can cause a crash loop that could only be fixed by uninstalling and re-installing the WhatsApp app.
As bad as it is, Uninstalling the WhatsApp app does not solve the problem in total, users wouldn’t be able have access to the affected whatsapp group.
“In a typical scenario, when a user in a WhatsApp group sends a message to the group, the application will examine the parameter participant to identify who sent the message. While using our tool we were able to access this parameter and edit it.
“In order to exploit it this bug we would need to replace the participant’s parameter from the sender phone number to any non-digit character(s) e.g. ‘[email protected]’,”Check Point said.
When the hacker inject(send) the malicious message to the group, the WhatsApp app will crash on all the members device the crash will continue to crash even after the WhatsApp app is reopened, resulting in a crash loop and as well wiping all data shared in the group.
Because WhatsApp is one of the world’s leading communication channels for consumers, businesses and government agencies, the ability to stop people using WhatsApp and delete valuable information from group chats is a powerful weapon for bad actors,” said Oded Vanunu, Check Point’s Head of Product Vulnerability Research, in a media statement.
The issue was reported by Check Point security to WhatsApp on August 28, 2019, and it was fixed in version 2.19.246 on wards
“WhatsApp greatly values the work of the technology community to help us maintain strong security for our users globally,” WhatsApp Software Engineer Ehren Kret said in a statement. “Thanks to the responsible submission from Check Point to our bug bounty program, we quickly resolved the issue for all WhatsApp apps in mid-September. We have also recently added new controls to prevent people from being added to unwanted groups to avoid communication with untrusted parties all together.”
With that been said, users are Been encouraged to update their whatsapp app to the latest version to avert encountering any disruption
