Like it or not, WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps out there and billions around the world use it. Unfortunately, for an instrument that is an integral part of communication for such a large audience, security is far from tight. It was recently discovered that anyone could suspend someone’s WhatsApp account just by knowing their number. Now, another research report highlights a basic feature that is exploited by many applications and services to reveal the application behavior of the targeted user.
As the cybersecurity company pointed out Followed, these applications and services take advantage of the online status feature to allow third parties to track when a person uses the application. You simply need to enter the mobile number of the person they want to track, and these apps will do the rest for them. They can notify these third parties when their goals are online / offline and can generate complete reports on application usage history based on this information.
These applications are available and often disguised as tools for parents to keep track of their children’s online activity. I tried such an app from the Google Play Store and it worked exactly as I advertised. It sent me alerts when a certain contact (another number of mine) went online or went offline and can map this information to a graph that shows when and how long I was online. There is even an option to track multiple contacts at once, allowing you to deduce whether two contacts can talk to each other.
The graphics are not yet complete because I just tried the service, but you will get the image.
Since Google doesn’t allow cyberstalking apps in the Play Store, it’s a little surprising that they’re available in versions – some even have a subscription model that unlocks unlimited tracking / additional features.
Unfortunately, WhatsApp does not allow users to disable unknown numbers from viewing their status online, so there is nothing you can do to prevent someone from knowing when and for how long you are using the app. WhatsApp hasn’t commented on this issue yet, but we’ll update the article if we hear anything.
