A few days ago some reports about WhatsApp were floating all over the internet. Many people were saying that WhatsApp messages are not protected and it can be tracked very easily. Now WhatsApp has officially given the reply and they are saying that all the allegations do not hold any value. Company is not accepting all those reports in any case and they are saying that they are not compromising with the security of their users. Company just said a few hours ago that their messages cannot be intercepted and they are taking every possible precaution to keep all the data safe.
One of the most famous daily newspapers of The UK has claimed that WhatsApp has intentionally made the platform in a way that Government agencies and forces can read the messages easily. The newspaper is claiming that WhatsApp has accepted this point unofficially. They are further saying that some team members of the company are taking it as an ‘expected behaviour’ and company is not taking the steps actively to fix it. It is certainly very interesting to see how the security experts are going to react this time. You may remember that WhatsApp started utilizing end-to-end encryption signal protocol from April last year. However some sources are indicating that the related codes are not clear at this point of time.
The current scenario indicates that users have to trust the claims of WhatsApp. If company is saying that their messages cannot be intercepted then it actually means that they are tough to track. Company once again claimed that the platform is absolutely safe. According to the newspaper there is a special retransmission vulnerability which allows the agencies to read the messages with ease. This vulnerability is acting like a backdoor channel through which the communication can be checked whenever required.
WhatApp gave the official statement that they haven’t kept any ‘backdoor’ channel to enter into their platform. They are not giving government channels to check their messages and they will not hesitate to decline any government request to cross the threshold. Company further added that they always inform their users if they feel that their data is at risk. Company likes to keep the things transparent. This is not the first time that a security expert has discussed this type of issue. Some points were raised a few months ago and company denied all those claims at that time also.