They now can hack your WhatsApp with just a picture. Here’s how

WhatsApp and Telegram are two instant messaging apps that have more than a billion users. They offer encrypted communications, advantageous messaging, and a cluster of different features. However, new research reveals that a malware-injected image would have been sufficient to steal somebody's WhatsApp or Telegram web accounts. It'd take just a few moments after which the aggressor would increase finish control over accounts, including access to images, video, audio files, and contacts. Furthermore, encryption would really help with this kind of hack.

This entire hack was revealed by Israeli security firm Check Point. “This vulnerability, if exploited, would have allowed attackers to completely take over users’ accounts on any browser, and access victims’ personal and group conversations, photos, videos and other shared files, contact lists and more. This means that attackers could potentially download your photos and or post them online, send messages on your behalf, demand ransom and even take over your friends’ accounts,” according to a statement by Check Point’s Eran Vaknin, Roman Zaikin and Dikla Barda.

How precisely?

Peculiarly, it's the end-to-end encryption highlight of these apps that would have helped hackers exploit the flaw. Since the contents of chats are end-to-end encrypted, it implies that neither WhatsApp nor Telegram could see the malware hidden in a common pernicious image. That implies both organizations would be blind to the content, permitting vindictive code to be passed back and forth between users.

In November, Check Point uncovered a malware campaign that tainted over 1 million Android phones to up-vote apps in the Google Play Store.