Whatsapp Security

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The evolution of different technological tools to enhance communication is growing at a mind boggling pace. With the advent of the Internet in mid 90’s – we have seen messengers like Yahoo messenger, Windows Messenger and then we moved onto Google Talk, Skype, Viber and a number of social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn finally now we have ‘Whatsapp’.  All these and more have been born more on the necessity to communicate more effectively and in real time.

The popularity of Whatsapp followed by its security limitations forms the basis of this post.

Why is Whatsapp’s Popularity increasing? :

‘Whatsapp’ which is a messaging service for multiple platforms such as Android, Blackberry, Windows phone and Nokia series has seen its popularity steadily increase over the past few years particularly in India. As of January 2016, Whatsapp has 990 million users worldwide and it is growing rapidly. (Whatsapp) By means of ‘Whatsapp’ one can exchange messages, audio files, video files and also talk in real time. In addition to this, groups can also be formed to share information.

The rising popularity of ‘Whatsapp’ might be due to a number of factors but some of them are listed below:

  1. ‘Whatsapp’ services are tied to telephone numbers rather than email addresses. Phone numbers are definitely more ubiquitous than email addresses and this makes it easier for one to adapt to the tool.
  2. The fact that ‘Whatsapp’ is like SMS but with better features makes it a definite winner.
  3. ’Whatsapp’ conversations are relatively more private than their social media counterparts(as of this post when Whatsapp hasn’t yet been integrated with Facebook)

 

Security in ‘Whatsapp’:

Any new and popular software is always prone to security attacks. Whatsapp is no exception and with more personal information being shared through this new medium, it is always vulnerable to security risks.  The following are some of security risks of ‘Whatsapp’ and some of the ways to avoid them:

  1. It is always critical to enable all the security features associated with any new tool. Hackers and malicious elements will seek to exploit the threats associated with security lapses for personal and professional gains. Restricting ‘Last seen’ timestamp, profile photo and ‘Status’ to ‘My Contacts’ or ‘Nobody’ is a good security feature to practice when communicating in ‘Whatsapp’.

 

  1. Here are a few implications if your phone does fall prey to culprits:

 

a. Since, ‘Whatsapp’ itself cannot be locked, all conversations and private information shared via ‘Whatsapp’(like credit card numbers, bank account numbers and any other personal information) will be compromised.

b. The huge amount of information retrieved can be misused and the individual who owns the phone might suffer grievous personal and financial damages.

 

In order to avoid this and more, it is safe to download an app from the appropriate play stores to password lock the app.

 

  1. This age sees pictures that can be easily taken and shared to different groups. These pictures inadvertently are stored on the different mobiles of the different group members and which might again be re-shared. This sharing and re-sharing of personal pictures is a security hazard.

 

This can be avoided by using a balanced view to share private pictures as “balance” in sharing enables lesser security implications.

 

  1. ‘Whatsapp web’ was the newest addition which allowed users to engage in conversations with ‘Whatsapp’ while being on the desktop. This type of engagement opened the PC to new vulnerabilities that compromised the PC. Patches are then released to secure the vulnerability.

It is hence recommended that all new patches be downloaded for efficient functioning of ‘Whatsapp’.

whatsapp

We saw ‘Whatsapp’ and its security features/risks in this post. ‘Whatsapp’ will no doubt grow more in the coming years as the thirst for instant communication continues.

Bibliography
Whatsapp. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia.org:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp

 

About Pavan Gumaste

Pavan Rao is a programmer / Developer by Profession and Cloud Computing Professional by choice with in-depth knowledge in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform. He helps the organisation figure out what to build, ensure successful delivery, and incorporate user learning to improve the strategy and product further.

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