The world’s most widely used software tools are often the subject of malicious attacks and even small “hacks” that cause service failures. Application security experts detail the detection of a practice in which a user can send their WhatsApp contacts a message capable of completely paralyzing the smartphone of the user receiving the message.
While smartphone manufacturers and app developers try to meet the highest standards of mobile security to ensure device and information protection, threat actors and even pranksters always find new ways to fail these systems, which in the most severe cases could compromise a device altogether.
About WhatsApp’s malicious messaging campaign, a recent report prepared by application security experts from WABetaInfo mentions that these messages contain characters that the app is unable to read: “In more technical terms, the app does not have a library capable of interpreting the received message, triggering a failure in WhatsApp code, which will initiate a cycle of restarts in search of a library to interpret the received characters”, mentions the report.
One noteworthy aspect of these messages with unusual characters is that any user without hacking knowledge can create one very simply, even using preloaded tools on any smartphone. The following are some examples of this kind of message.
Application security experts mention that the simplest method to eliminate this problem is for WhatsApp developers to include libraries to interpret these characters in upcoming updates. While this happens, users can protect their smartphone from pranksters and malicious users using WhatsApp Web, the version of the desktop messaging platform. From this page, the user can enter the conversation containing the malicious message to remove it; don’t forget to leave any chat group involving unidentified users who can send these kinds of messages.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
