A new WhatsApp bug is exposing your chats to strangers
خلل في واتساب قد يسمح للغرباء برؤية رسائلك
WhatsApp is one of the most widely used chat apps across the globe. The chat app enjoys an active userbase of over 1.5 billion and ensures chat privacy with its end-to-end encryption feature. However, some bugs still manage to make their way into the app. WhatsApp this time has been infected by a new kind of bug that causes WhatsApp to show your chats and photos to strangers.
The bug was first spotted by an Amazon employee named Abby Fuller who took to Twitter to talk about the glitch. Fuller said that she could see someone else’s chats and private photos on her phone. ” Logged into WhatsApp with a new phone number today and the message history from the previous owner’s number was right there?”This doesn’t seem right. No, Abby, it doesn’t.” she tweeted. In plain words, anyone who has your old number can access your chat history.
“And now I’m wondering how many other times it’s happened? Like does whoever has my old number now have MY WhatsApp history?” she said in her tweet. Fuller said that both phone as well as the SIM was new.
There are chances that the number issued to Fuller could be a recycled one as telecom companies often do that but it is still a cause of concern for WhatsApp.
WhatsApp advises to migrate your account before you stop using any phone number. The app offers a Change Number feature using which you can migrate your account information including your previous chats, profile information as well as the groups you are part of.
In a related story, some WhatsApp users are also reporting of cases of disappearing messages on the app. WhatsApp has said that it is aware of the bug and is working on to fix it. We had said that this could be the case of users not backing up their chat on Google drive which is why the their old chats are being deleted.
The chat company in August had announced a partnership with Google under which all chats from the app which were backed to the Drive account would no more be counted against your data storage. Also, the backups that were not updated in the last one year would automatically be removed from the Google Drive storage.
source: indiatoday.in
اشتكت إحدى مستخدمات تطبيق واتساب من أنها استطاعت رؤية رسائل مستخدم آخر على جهازها.واكتشفت آبي فولر -وهي موظفة في قسم خدمات الويب في شركة أمازون- هذا الخلل، ونشرت صورة لشاشة التطبيق على موقع تويتر.
وتقول آبي إن الهاتف والشريحة جديدان، وهذه هي المرة الأولى التي تستخدم فيها هذا الرقم، ومنذ تنزيلها التطبيق فوجئت برسائل قديمة موجودة على التطبيق.
وانهالت الاستفسارات والتخمينات من مستخدمي التطبيق بعد نشر تغريدتها، لمحاولة فهم هذه الحالة وتفسيرها.وقد رجح بعضهم أن يكون التطبيق قد أظهر رسائل صاحب الرقم السابق بالخطأ عندما قامت آبي بتفعيله.وهو ما دعا آبي للتساؤل إن كان الشخص الذي حصل على رقمها القديم يمكنه مشاهدة رسائلها على الواتساب؟
وبينما يعتبر هذا الحادث فرديا إذ لم يرد شكاوى مماثلة من مستخدمين آخرين، إلا أن المقلق هو أن تمرّ هذه الحالات العرضية دون الإبلاغ عنها، خصوصا عندما يكون صاحب الرسائل شخصا غريبا.
وقد وجهت صحيفة صن البريطانية سؤالا لواتساب عن هذه الحادثة، ولم تتلق ردا حتى كتابة الخبر.
