Telegram Founder Says WhatsApp Users Can Loose Personal Data To Hackers

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th October, 2022) Telegram founder Pavel Durov said on Thursday that hackers can gain full access to all personal data on users' phones due to security holes in WhatsApp (a service of Meta, which is banned in Russia as an extremist organization).

"Hackers could have full access to everything on the phones of WhatsApp users. This was possible through a security issue disclosed by WhatsApp itself last week," Durov said on Telegram.

In order to gain control over a smartphone, hackers need only send a malicious video to the user of WhatsApp or start a video call in the application, Durov said.

This is not the first time that WhatsApp has faced security issues, which indicates the prospects for new security flaws, Durov said.

"You can use any messaging app you like, but do stay away from WhatsApp - it has now been a surveillance tool for 13 years," Durov noted.

In September 2021, WhatsApp was fined 225 million Euros ($267 million) for violating EU data privacy rules. The Irish Data Protection Commission, which conducted the investigation, noted that WhatsApp failed to inform EU citizens about how it handles their personal data, including how it shares that information with its parent company Meta.