Along came a Whatsapp trojan

WhatsApp, an end-to-end encrypted messaging platform owned by Facebook, faced an issue where a sophisticated hacking team found a flaw and injected a spyware to listen to the calls of a few individuals on the platform. WhatsApp discovered the flaw earlier this month and upgraded its infrastructure. It asked users globally to update the app. India is among its largest markets with over 300 million using the messaging app to send texts and make calls.

What happened?
Around 1.5-billion WhatsApp users were affected by a vulnerability that allowed attackers to inject a commercial Israeli spyware into phones. The surveillance software was installed on both iOS and Android devices using the app’s call feature. This gave the hackers complete access to everything on infected mobile devices, including personal information, email, contacts, camera, location and microphone.