WhatsApp flaw: Android phones can be hacked with GIFs

A new security glitch has been detected in the WhatsApp that can allow hackers to hijack a phone by just sending GIFs with malicious code.

A security researcher who goes by the moniker Awakened has written an explainer on double-free vulnerability in WhatsApp on his personal GitHub blog.

For the uninitiated, double-free vulnerability is a memory corruption anomaly in the WhatsApp‘s Gallery view implementation process. WhatsApp usually creates a preview of images before the actual photo is presented to the user when he/she enter the gallery section; but, due to lack of proper security layer, those photos can be illegally retrieved by a hacker.