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Facebook fixes bug that let hackers hijack users' WhatsApp application

WION Web Team
New Delhi, Delhi, IndiaUpdated: Oct 10, 2018, 09:34 PM IST
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WhatsApp and Facebook Photograph:(Zee News Network)

Story highlights

The bug which was discovered in late August had affected WhatsApp applications on Apple and Android smartphones.

A bug in Facebook's messaging app WhatsApp that allowed hackers to take over users' applications when they attended an incoming call was fixed by Facebook in early October, media report stated.

The bug which was discovered in late August had affected WhatsApp applications on Apple and Android smartphones.

The media also said that the facebook did not respond to reports.

"This is a big deal," Travis Ormandy, a researcher at Google Project Zero which discovered the bug, said on Twitter. "Just ++answering a call from an attacker could completely compromise WhatsApp."

Facebook was recently accused of violating the EU's new privacy law called the General Data Protection Regulation, which came into effect in May. 

In the biggest-ever security breach after Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook in late September admitted hackers broke into nearly 50 million users' accounts by stealing their "access tokens" or digital keys.

This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people's accounts.

The hackers also gained access to personal information from third-party apps and services, like Tinder, Spotify, Airbnb, and Instagram, which allow users to sign up using their Facebook login.

According to Facebook, users’ passwords were not revealed in the data breach, though impacted accounts did have to re-log into the social network on Friday.