WhatsApp has been a surveillance tool for 13 years – Telegram CEO claims
Pavel Durov, the billionaire owner of the social media platform Telegram, took to his channel to explain how weak WhatsApp is compared to his Telegram.
He claimed that every year, WhatsApp had a security issue that allowed hackers to access users’ information on their devices.
“Hackers could have full access to everything on the phones of WhatsApp users. This was possible through a security issue disclosed by WhatsApp itself last week.
All a hacker had to do to control your phone was send you a malicious video or start a video call with you on WhatsApp. You are probably thinking, ‘Yeah, but if I updated WhatsApp to the latest version, I am safe, right?’ Not really.”
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He continued, “A WhatsApp security issue exactly like this one was discovered in 2018, then another in 2019 and another in 2020 (tap each year’s link to see the corresponding vulnerability).
And yes, in 2017, before that. Prior to 2016, WhatsApp didn’t have encryption at all. Every year, we learn about some issue in WhatsApp that puts everything on their users’ devices at risk.
Which means it’s almost certain that a new security flaw already exists there. Such issues are hardly incidental – they are planted backdoors. If one backdoor is discovered and has to be removed, another one is added (read the post “Why WhatsApp will never be secure” to understand why).”Pavel wrote on his Telegram channel, that has over 700K followers.
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He said that anyone who had WhatsApp installed on their phone was risking their data, just as the world’s richest person, Jeff Bezos, discovered in 2020.
Pavel revealed he had deleted WhatsApp from his devices years ago because the app has back doors built into them.
“I’m not pushing people to switch to Telegram here. With 700M+ active users and 2M+ daily signups, Telegram doesn’t need additional promotion.
You can use any messaging app you like, but stay away from WhatsApp – it has now been a surveillance tool for 13 years.” Pavel concluded.
WhatsApp currently has about 2.44 billion unique users across the world. Statista reported in February 2022 that WhatsApp was the leading communication channel for global smartphone users in 2021.
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