WhatsApp Hacked: A Hacker May Pretend to be You and Send Messages

As found in a research of the Israeli Check Point cybersecurity firm Researchers, there is a flaw in the messaging app taking an advantage of which hackers can modify and send fake messages in the popular social messaging app. As stated by CheckPoint, the vulnerability in the app gives a hacker the possibility "to intercept and manipulate messages sent by those in a group or private conversation." In addition to that, the hacker can also "create and spread misinformation".

As per the research results, a hacker may practice some tactics and act as you to get the liberty of sending messages to your WhatsApp mates on your name without leaving a hint for your friends as to whether it is you or the hacker chatting with them.

It is only after repeated and increasing scrutiny of the social messaging app owned by Facebook, that the flaw came into notice when there were spreading misinformation due to its popularity and convenience for forwarding messages to groups.

Following a major incident of forwarding fake messages and leading to the Indian government threatening people to take action against the fake message senders, WhatsApp has finally decided and announced a particular limits of forwarding messages.

In an another tactic used by the hackers, they can even alter the text send by one of your friends to you as a reply to your chat. The hackers are also capable of sending a private message to a group chat member, which will remain disguised as a public message for all. The impact would be that when the targeted individual responds, everyone in the conversation can see it.

The research firm has stated that the issue has been notified to WhatsApp and in reply the company “acknowledged” the flaws.

WhatsApp released a statement: "We carefully reviewed this issue and it's the equivalent of altering an email to make it look like something a person never wrote."