Hackers can compromise your WhatsApp account by tricking you into answering a video call
10.10.2018 securityaffairs Hacking

Hackers can compromise your WhatsApp account by tricking you into answering a video call, the company fixed the flaw in September.
WhatsApp has addressed a vulnerability in the mobile applications that could have been exploited by attackers to crash victims instant messaging app simply by placing a call.

The vulnerability is a memory heap overflow issue that was discovered by Google Project Zero white hat hacker Natalie Silvanovich in August.

Natalie Silvanovich
@natashenka
Memory corruption bug in WhatsApp's non-WebRTC video conferencing implementation https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1654 …

8:47 PM - Oct 9, 2018
560
305 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Whatsapp has fixed the flaw on September 28 and Silvanovich published the technical details of the vulnerability.

The news of the flaw was also shared by popular Google researcher and bug hunter Tavis Ormandy.

Tavis Ormandy
✔
@taviso
This is a big deal. Just answering a call from an attacker could completely compromise WhatsApp.

Natalie Silvanovich
@natashenka
Memory corruption bug in WhatsApp's non-WebRTC video conferencing implementation https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1654 …

8:52 PM - Oct 9, 2018
444
338 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
The exploitation of the flaw was very trivial, a malformed RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol) packet sent to a user, a call request, could have been used to trigger the memory heap overflow and cause the crash of the application.

“This issue can occur when a WhatsApp user accepts a call from a malicious peer. It affects both the Android and iPhone clients.” reads the report published by Silvanovich.

An attacker could completely hijack a target’s WhatsApp account and spy on its conversations by simply video calling it.

Silvanovich published the proof-of-concept in the security advisory.

Latest versions of both popular instant messaging app for both Android and iOS include the fix for this vulnerability.