What’s really up with  your  ‘secure’ WhatsApp chats

The surfacing of private WhatsApp exchanges between Bollywood actors amid the investigation into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput has raised questions about the platform’s security, and whether the app indeed protects user privacy. Mint takes a deep dive.

What does end-to-end encryption mean?

When texts are sent from your phone, there are three points of contact—your phone, WhatsApp’s servers and the receiver’s phone. So, between WhatsApp’s server and the receiver, the so-called Man In The Middle (MITM) attacks are possible. Besides, WhatsApp, its parent Facebook could technically access texts when they’re on server.