WhatsApp Security Threats You Need to Know

WhatsApp is one of the apps with the most astonishing growth in the recent years. Ever since it was bought by Facebook back in 2014, they kept growing. Now the messaging app is used by more than a billion people every month, sending more than 30 billion texts a day. Even though they take care of their security, there are still some flaws in it, and there are some security threats you should know about.

Web Malware

Naturally, of the billion users, there have to be some cybercriminals who want to exploit the app. Back in January 2015, the company released a new interface on the web, as well as a desktop app. As such, many malicious people tried to create fake websites and apps that stole users’ data and spread around malware. As such, they could even take control of your computer without you knowing it.

Solution: Always use official websites and apps!

Data Sharing with Facebook

The condition for the acquirement of WhatsApp by Facebook was to respect users’ privacy and not to share information between the two companies. However, a huge scandal started off recently, dealing with the fact that WhatsApp included in an update the possibility to share data with the parent company. Ever since then, people have been wary of the information they send over WhatsApp.

Solution: In general, make sure you’re not sharing extremely private or sensitive data through this messaging app.

Conclusion

Though the app still uses end-to-end encryption, which is a highly secure manner of ensuring privacy, it seems that there are still attempts to share your data with Facebook. Moreover, there are lots of malicious people and scammers out there, on the look for your login information. Make sure you never give away passwords and phone numbers to people you don’t trust.