WhatsApp is a popular messaging app that has become an essential part of our lives as a channel of communication. But hacking your WhatsApp Account is probably the Very Bad Idea for everyone and you can avoid it by being aware of the ways that can be used to hack WhatsApp chats and take precautionary measures around it.
Tabel Of Content
- By exploiting vulnerabilities
- WhatsApp Web
- Exporting chat history to email
- Accessing your chat backup
- Media file jacking
- Spoofing method
- Using third-party spyware
- How to stop media file jacking on WhatsApp?
- How to be Safe with WhatsApp Web exploite?
1. By exploiting vulnerabilities
Now and then, new vulnerabilities emerge that can be abused to hack WhatsApp chats. Various types of formal WhatsApp weaknesses that have inflicted harm in the past year are Pegasus voice call attack and remote code undertaking via GIF.
The Pegasus voice call attack allowed hackers to access the device by making only WhatsApp voice calls on their target. Even if the target did not answer the call, the attack may still work, and the target may not even be aware that malware has been installed on their device.
Other flaws included malicious GIFs that allowed attackers to steal the victim’s WhatsApp chat history when viewed.
Although these vulnerabilities have been fixed, there is always a chance that a new one may arise and as long as those unknown vulnerabilities remain in the wild. Therefore, there is always a security risk.
Advice: Always keep your WhatsApp up to date because the development team is always releasing new patches to address such vulnerabilities. And if you have not updated WhatsApp for a long time, I suggest you do it immediately!
2. WhatsApp Web
WhatsApp Web is a feature that allows you to use the Whatsapp messaging service on a desktop computer. You can send and receive text, images, videos and files through it. Your chats, as well as media files, remain perfectly synchronized between mobile and desktop. This means that any action you take on any device also appears in another device.
Still, this feature also presents a security risk. While you must approve WhatsApp Web on the PC by scanning the QR code on your mobile WhatsApp app, once the desktop device is allowed, you may use it as usual. it continues to give access to your WhatsApp chats through the PC.
So if you let someone else access this pc with authorized access to your WhatsApp Web account, that person is on the browser https://web.whatsapp.com / open, and all your chats will start to be visible to that person.
From there, the individual may either export the chat or take a screenshot of it, thus hacking your WhatsApp chats and violating your privacy.
How to Be Safe with WhatsApp Web exploite?
Here are several things you can do to keep your chats safe on WhatsApp Web:
- Never use WhatsApp Web on a PC that is shared with other people. If you have to do this in the required condition, do not forget to log out of your account. To log out of your WhatsApp Web account, simply click on the vertical three dots button and select log out, as shown in the image below.
- You can also select not to choose the “Keep Me logged in” option that shows when you’re going to join into WhatsApp Web. When your WhatsApp session finishes, WhatsApp will automatically log you out. By doing this, WhatsApp will automatically log you out every time your session ends.
- Whenever your WhatsApp Web is activated on a device, your mobile app will always notify you of this in the notification panel of your smartphone. So if you see this message below, quickly log out of all devices by opening the WhatsApp app on the phone> more options> WhatsApp web> log out of all devices> log out.
3. Exporting chat history to email
This strategy is similar to the earlier ones and needs manual access to your device to hack WhatsApp chats. This method takes less than a minute to work and all you have to do is to secretly access your device either by deceiving you or by taking advantage of the fact that your device is left open.
To export WhatsApp chats, one just has to open WhatsApp, tap on the more option (upper right corner) and select the Export chat option and send all chats to an email ID where it can be accessed later.
Tip: always protect your device with a PIN or fingerprint to prevent anyone from spying on your chat. If you have to entrust your device to someone, make sure you use App Locker on WhatsApp to keep it safe.
4. Accessing your chat backup
It should be noted that WhatsApp only offers end-to-end encryption on its platform. This means that as soon as your chat exits WhatsApp, you lose encryption.
If you have turned on the backup chat option and are saving a copy of your conversations on Google Drive or iCloud, remember that they are unencrypted and can be easily accessed by others if they manage to hack or access your Gmail or iCloud account. .
Advice: I personally do not recommend saving chat backups to the cloud only because of security risks. Even if you have to do it because you have important conversations to save I suggest being more careful in keeping your cloud account safe and not sharing it with anyone using strong passwords.
5. Media file jacking
WhatsApp encrypts your messages in transit, but once a media file gets on your phone, its integrity cannot be guaranteed. Media file jacking is a vulnerability where the attacker exploits the way WhatsApp receives media files such as photos or videos and writes those files to the device’s external storage.
Media file hacking can be done by establishing a violent piece of malware invisible inside a harmless-looking app. This malware can monitor incoming files on WhatsApp. So when a new file arrives, the malware can swap the actual file for a fake file and can be used to trick people or keep track of their chats.
How to stop media file jacking on WhatsApp?
To stop media file jacking on WhatsApp, go to Settings> chat settings> save to Gallery option and turn it off. This will keep your WhatsApp conversations from being compromised.
6. Spoofing method
Using the spoofing method, WhatsApp chats can be hacked without physical access to the device and this is what makes it dangerous and difficult to prevent. Although this is an elaborate task, it is not entirely impossible.
In this way, the attacker has to find the MAC address of the Target smartphone. After that, they can use the busy box and terminal emulator on their smartphone to convert the Wi-Fi MAC address on their device into the address of the target device.
Next, they install WhatsApp and enter the phone number of the target device. Then they get the verification code on the target device to log in. When the verification code received on victim mobile, they use it to log into the victim WhatsApp account and then delete it to avoid the victim’s detection.
However, a red flag could be that WhatsApp will be logged out on the victim’s device when the hacker signs in. But unfortunately, damage can happen by then.
7. Using third-party spyware
There are many cell monitoring apps available like iwaspai or spyzy that have been specifically designed to monitor chats on WhatsApp and other messaging apps. For this method to work, one has to install this app by physically accessing your phone and giving access to survey your chats.
Some of these spy apps offer additional features such as listening to live surroundings, screen recording, keylogging, camera control, screenshots and recording chats.
You may potentially take it a step further and use spyware to remotely hack WhatsApp chats. Some known names are Pocwapp and WSP 3.0 – WhatsApp Scan Pro. Now, these apps are paid and are available on the darknet, so it’s not something that’s used frequently, but it’s not something that’s
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