New Delhi. This week, the Indian government warned WhatsApp desktop users about a major security threat. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, on April 9 issued a ‘high-severity’ warning for WhatsApp users who have installed the desktop app on their PCs.
The government has found some security flaws in WhatsApp, which hackers can take advantage of to steal your personal data. Your account can also be hacked due to these flaws. The government has advised users to update their WhatsApp immediately. These flaws have been fixed in the new update. Apart from this, users have been advised to avoid clicking on any suspicious link. If an unknown person sends you a message, ignore it and block it immediately.
WhatsApp security issue: Should you worry?
The biggest takeaway from this security alert is that if hackers manage to exploit the vulnerabilities, WhatsApp users could be exposed to spoofing attacks. The CERT-In note states, “This vulnerability is caused by a misconfiguration between the MIME type and file extension, which leads to tampering when opening attachments. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to create malicious attachments that could run arbitrary code when opened manually in WhatsApp.”
This security risk is mainly related to users who use the WhatsApp desktop app on Windows PC. The agency says that versions of WhatsApp Desktop for Windows prior to 2.2450.6 are vulnerable to these spoof attacks. To avoid this, update your WhatsApp immediately.
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