• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

This WhatsApp security flaw could have let hackers access all your chats

September 2, 2021 by David Barret Leave a Comment

A security vulnerability in popular messaging app WhatsApp’s image filter function, enabled cybersecurity researchers to read sensitive information from the memory of the app.

According to a report by Check Point Research (CPR), malicious users could exploit the vulnerability by applying specific image filters to a specially crafted image.

As per recent estimates, WhatsApp clocks about 2 billion active users every month and reportedly ferries over 55 billion messages daily, along with 4.5 billion photos, and one billion videos shared per day.

TechRadar needs you!

We’re looking at how our readers use VPNs with streaming sites like Netflix so we can improve our content and offer better advice. This survey won’t take more than 60 seconds of your time, and we’d hugely appreciate if you’d share your experiences with us.

>> Click here to start the survey in a new window <<

  • We’ve compiled a list of the best Android antivirus apps
  • Shield yourself with these best identity theft protection services
  • These are the best firewall apps and services

“With over two billion active users, WhatsApp can be an attractive target for attackers. Once we discovered the security vulnerability, we quickly reported our findings to WhatsApp, who was cooperative and collaborative in issuing a fix,” said Oded Vanunu, Head of Products Vulnerabilities Research at CPR.

Bad image

CPR explains that image filtering is the process through which pixels of the original image are modified to achieve certain visual effects, such as blur or sharpen. 

During their research study, CPR learned that switching between various filters on crafted GIF files caused WhatsApp to crash. Upon further investigation it was discovered that one of the crashes was CPR identified one of the crashes as the result of memory corruption. 

CPR reported the problem to WhatsApp, who classified it as an out-of-bounds read and write issue, and tracked it as CVE-2020-1910, before deploying a fix in February 2021 

“We regularly work with security researchers to improve the numerous ways WhatsApp protects people’s messages, and we appreciate the work that Check Point does to investigate every corner of our app,” noted WhatsApp in a statement, adding that it saw no evidence of abuse related to this vulnerability.

  • Here’s our list of the best VPN services

source https://www.techradar.com/news/this-whatsapp-security-flaw-could-have-let-hackers-access-all-your-chats/

David Barret
David Barret

Related posts:

  1. Irish data privacy watchdog fines WhatsApp 225 million euros
  2. This cheap 4K TV could be one of the best 40-inch screens to buy this year
  3. Analysis-A City divided? London tackles Brexit with twin-track finance
  4. The Fujifilm X-T30 II is a minor reboot of one of the world’s best travel cameras

Filed Under: News

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • Alien Abduction Or A Trick Of The Mind? A Down To Earth Explanation Of Close Encounters
  • Six Months Into Trump’s Presidency, Americans Report Record Low Pride In Being American
  • TikToker Unknowingly Handles Extremely Venomous Cone Snail And Lives To Tell The Tale
  • Scientists Sequence Oldest Egyptian DNA To Date, From A Whopping 4,800 Years Ago
  • “Uncharted Waters”: Large Hadron Collider Begins Colliding Oxygen For The First Time
  • 125,000-Year-Old Neanderthal “Fat Factory” Shows They Gorged On Bone Grease
  • On July 3, Earth Will Reach Its Farthest Point From The Sun – 152 Million Kilometers Away
  • NASA’s Perseverance Rover May Have Recorded Evidence Of Electrified Dust Devils On Mars
  • “Hymn to Babylon”: Missing Mesopotamian Text Dating Back Nearly 3,000 Years Discovered
  • Multiple New Species Of Cute Spotty And Stripy Geckos Discovered In Remote Cambodia
  • ChatGPT May Be Surprisingly Good At Piloting Spacecraft, Taking 2nd Place In Spaceflight Competition
  • Incredible Supernova Finding Shows That “Double-Detonation Mechanism” Happens In Nature
  • Soda Cans, Asthma Inhalers, And… Water Bottles? All Things That Could Explode In Your Car This Summer
  • Video: Is There An Ideal Sleeping Position?
  • If You Look Up At The Right Time Today, You Will See A Giant “X” On The Moon
  • We May Have Our Third Interstellar Visitor And It’s Nothing Like The Previous Two
  • Orcas Filmed Kissing (With Tongues) In The Wild For The First Time
  • How Easy Is It For A Country To Change Its Time Zone?
  • Earth’s First Commercial Space Station Set To Launch In 2026
  • Black Hole Moon: Rogue Planets With Weird Signatures Could Be A Sign Of Advanced Alien Life
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version