{"id":144685,"date":"2019-07-15T17:02:27","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T15:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=144685"},"modified":"2025-07-01T21:41:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T04:41:30","slug":"whatsapp-telegram-security-flaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/whatsapp-telegram-security-flaw\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp, Telegram security flaw: how to fix it"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WhatsApp<\/p>\n

We already know that you can’t believe everything you read online, but now we might not be able to trust everything we see on WhatsApp or Telegram!<\/p>\n

Researchers from the software company Symantec discovered a vulnerability in WhatsApp and Telegram. The vulnerability would allow a hacker to change what a person sent you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the above video, the researchers showed that through the vulnerability, they were able to change the faces in a photo to look like Nicolas Cage.\u00a0<\/strong>As hilarious, and amazing as that is, there is more to fear than a real-life version of his movie “Face\/Off.”<\/p>\n

Let’s say someone sent you a receipt or an invoice. A hacker could alter the information about the account, routing number, or the amount! Suddenly, rather than reimbursing someone for last night’s dinner, you just got duped into sending a stranger $50.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

How could this happen?<\/h2>\n

WhatsApp and Telegram both use end-to-end encryption which basically means that messages are kept between those involved. Even the companies themselves cannot read the messages.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, this does not mean the app itself is safe from being hacked. This vulnerability could have allowed for a spyware attack that would have compromised WhatsApp and Telegram users.<\/p>\n

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What’s being done about this?<\/h2>\n

There is one big thing you can do to protect yourself when using WhatsApp and Telegram: become invisible.<\/p>\n

The vulnerability comes from how files are stored on the apps<\/a>, according to Symantec. In order to close that gap, you need to remove your gallery’s visibility.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In WhatsApp, turn off “Media Visibility”<\/strong> in the settings menu.<\/p>\n

In Telegram, toggle off “Save to Gallery”<\/strong> from the settings as well.<\/p>\n

Wrapping up<\/h2>\n

There are many political activists, politicians, and people-of-interest who need to keep their conversations private, so they use apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. Unfortunately, instances like this and like a few months ago when a human rights lawyer was targeted in a WhatsApp virus attack<\/a>, are showing that they might not be the most secure.<\/p>\n

Although this security flaw was caught early, the point remains that this could have been devastating to users.\u00a0<\/strong>Next time you go to send something important on WhatsApp or Telegram, you might want to rethink it.<\/p>\n

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Fake WhatsApp scams <\/p>\r\n

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Watch out for this Fake version of WhatsApp \u25ba<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n \r\n

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Fake WhatsApp downloaded by more than 1 million users \u25ba<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n

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Beware this Fake WhatsApp Update Scam \u25ba<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n \r\n

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8 tricks to strengthen your WhatsApp security \u25ba<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Security flaw allowed hackers to alter photos sent on WhatsApp and Telegram. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9180,"featured_media":144687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":1},"categories":[2518,2441],"tags":[2406,1624,1027,1369,1043],"usertag":[790],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-144685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guides","category-how-to","tag-app-subdomain-redirectiontelegram","tag-privacy","tag-security","tag-telegram","tag-whatsapp","usertag-whatsapp"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325718,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144685\/revisions\/325718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144685"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=144685"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=144685"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=144685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}