Can WhatsApp be hacked? and how to protect yourself from hacking.
The late 1700s saw the establishment of the postal service as a way of communication, fast forward centuries later the internet has taken over, there are now lots of ways to communicate over the internet from electronic mails to social media apps.
Our main focus today will be the popular private messaging app, Whatsapp.
WhatsApp was founded in February 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, former employees of Yahoo!. In January 2009, after Koum purchased an iPhone, he and Acton decided to create an app for the App Store.
Since it's founding whatsapp has grown to be come one of the most used and most reliable private messaging app thanks to it's end to end encrytpion. What's has since gained ground over it's competitors and fellow social media platforms.
With a growing number of users, also attracts a lot of threats because of the opportunities to make money that comes with the users. Online privacy has become a major issue in our online communities. In recent years we have seen a rising number of cases in data and privacy breaches from cyber attacks.
The Question is can anyone remotely Hack Whatsapp?
The answer to this question is no but with that being said you can never say never in the tech world. To clarify and make our point the hacking we are talking about here is brute force hacking which doesn't use any common tricks like whatsapp web which we will talk about later. Whatsapp spends millions of dollars in it's end to end encrytpion for it's users which means only the sender and the receiver have access to the content they exchange. Anyone who wishes to bypass this will have to spend a lot of money and a lot of time not to mention they would have to be highly skilled which leaves out a handful of people or criminal organizations capable of at least achieving this goal.
What is this so called end to end encrytpion?
A little bit of history, the 1990s saw the introduction of Pretty Good Privacy or PGP, an end-to-end encryption software created by a programmer named Phil Zimmermann, this would revolutionarise the tech world
End-to-End (E2E) Encryption is a system of secure communication, protecting data so that only the sender and the receiver can read the message. If the message is intercepted, no third party would be able to decipher or alter the message, securing it from any external influence and manipulation.
Encrypting a PDF file encrypts the content only (that is, objects in the file, which are characterized as either strings or streams). The remaining objects, determining the structure of the document, remain unencrypted. In other words, you can still find out the number and size of pages, objects, and links but not the actual message.
With time this encrytpion has become better and better making it harder to break.
While remotely brute force hacking is not an option for a lot of people who intend on breaching other user accounts there are a few tricks which they could use to get in so we will discuss those methods and ways to counter them.
The first one will be controversial given a lot of users have unknowingly embraced this with open arms.
1. Use Of GB any unofficial Whatsapp apk
With the introduction of moded apks like GB, FM ,NA and many other Whatsapp moded apks data breach has becomes easier to hackers since third parties providing those mods can easily access the data. The is no legal binding to the third parties collecting your data from these unofficial apps which means they can to whatever they want with the data they collect.
The only way to protect yourself from this is to use the officials app.
2. Whatsapp Web
Whatsapp released whatsapp web as way to have to users to control the same account , this is a very handy tool especially in business whatsapp. Some like any other good invention have misused it to do their own bidding at others expense.
To connect 2 devices using this method lne requires physical access to the target's phone so they can go on whatsapp and scan the QR code. You can check and see if there is an authorised user logged into your account by clicking the 3 dots on the top corner and then click on linked devices. Here you can see if another is logged in and if they are you can easily unlink them
One way to prevent this is to not give physical access of your phone to other users and if you do make sure its password protected.
Use of Operating Sytsems monitoring Apps
With the end to end encryption being a stumbling block many attackers have turned to monitoring tools which can be installed on the target's phone and they can monitor the whole phone. These tools have gained popularity since they don't need to bypass the end to end encryption but merely monitor anything that's showing up on the screen. In our other article we will do in depth analysis of these tools.
Saving the best for last
There is a certain type of exploitation which uses the same concept as whatsapp web but this is deadly because it produces a scenario which is in a way, a DDoS attack which translates to Distributed Denial Of Service attack. This type of attack locks the owner out of their account and they can’t even warn contacts that they have been hacked because they would be completely locked out. Even though you are the owner of the account with the number you can’t even reset the account because nomatter what you do you can never log in even to delete your account until the user exploiting your account has willingly logged out. Because of its severe nature i will not divulge how to actually carry out this attack but for testing purposes we carried out this attack on volunteers to research and find out how to get back your account if the attacker refused to co-operate but it was impossible at least for the time being. If you want to see a demo of this type of attack just ask for a demo in our email: admin@kinebyte.com
How to protect yourself from exploitation/ hacking
1.The first precaution you can take is limiting the physical access to your phone since sometimes it needs physical access to install it first.
2.Another measure is to disallow installation of apps from unknown sources and to download apps from the appstore or playstore.
3.You should also be vigilant when clicking links because you might unknowingly install trojans from unknown links especially from emails, which might lead to unauthorised downloads and installations.
4.Another measure is to be aware of what kind of information about you is publicly available because you might end up being vulnerable to phishing attacks
In conclusion taking these precautions will help you to keep your account secure. With the changing digital world it has become more and more important to keep your account secure and keep your personal information private.
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