Warning for WhatsApp users over account suspension ‘hack’
There's a new WhatsApp vulnerability that has just been revealed and you need to know about it.
If you don't have email verification or a two-step verification of any sort then you may be vulnerable to this hack.
As reported by Forbes, researchers have found that this flaw exists in the instant messaging app due to two fundamental weaknesses; the first weakness allows anyone to enter your phone number on the WhatsApp installed on their phones.
While this may not give access to your WhatsApp account unless they somehow obtain the six-digit registration code you’ll get on your phone, multiple failed attempts to sign in using your phone number will block code entries on the WhatsApp installed on the perpetrator's phone for 12 hours. From here, all the attacker has to do is contact the WhatsApp support line to deactivate your account by stating that the phone has been lost and a new email address has been created. With the new email address, they will essentially be able to confirm everything concerning the account.
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Basically, anyone with your number can deactivate your account remotely.
The worst part of this is that you won’t be able to avoid that deactivation by using your two-step verification because the account would already be suspended.
If the perpetrator really dislikes you, they can keep doing this every 12 hours to keep you locked out of your account with failed sign in attempts.
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To avoid this problem, WhatsApp says that you should add your email address to your account and use the two-step verification. There are no details as yet if the instant messaging app is fixing this vulnerability and maybe they don't have to since this sort of thing hardly ever happens.
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