WhatsApp’s latest security flaws explained: Should users be worried?

Cybersecurity researchers at Check Point claim to have discovered multiple flaws in the popular instant messaging app WhatsApp. The three-pronged vulnerabilities allows hackers to spoof the identity of a sender, alter the text of someone else’s reply, and send a private message to a group participate that’s disguised as a public message.

CheckPoint researchers claim they had informed WhatsApp about the vulnerabilities in 2018. The instant messaging company only fixed the third vulnerability while leaving other two vulnerabilities exposed to hackers.

Researchers developed a tool that enabled them to decrypt WhatsApp communication and spoof the messages. Researchers pointed out that they focused on reversing WhatsApp’s algorithm to decrypt the data after analyzing how the messaging company encrypts the communication.