Careful

WhatsApp surprised everyone last April by implementing its end-to-end encryption end in all its service. In other words, protection that ensures that no one else can see messages, photos, videos, or even calls between users Something that leaves offside to government espionage and even WhatsApp orFacebook (its owner).However, there are still security holes that prevent all messages from being truly private and secret, as a researcher has just discovered.

Researcher Jonathan Zdziarski, focused on platform iOS , who has noticed the traces left by WhatsApp despite the deletion of messages And, according to his forensic tests, although messages are deleted from a conversation, there is still a record of these saved in iCloud or on the mobile hard drive Something that would allow to recover said conversations even if they were considered missing or deleted Of course, as long as you have the relevant computer knowledge , the specific forensic tools and physical access to the terminal It is that is, a vulnerability that should not make the most privacy-conscious users too nervous.

According to Zdziarski, the problem lies in the forensic traces that WhatsApp leaves on the hard drive of the device and iCloud despite deleting messages. And it is that its library SQLite with which it was created WhatsApp does not overwrite this information by default That is, even though it is erased and the app shows it as erased, it can actually be recoverable with the right tools and physical access to the device.

Serious Consequences

The most remarkable thing about this finding is not the security breach itself, which as we say should not alarm anyone. WhatsApp is still secure. However, as confirmed by Zdziarski on its website, the police may require Apple to request conversations and messages from WhatsApp of a person, always through judicial orderSomething that until now was supposedly impossible due to the protection of this application and its operation, which does not entail saving copies of messages on the servers of WhatsApp Now, however, it is known that a copy of these messages, even after being deleted, leaves traces in the terminal itself or even in the iCloud backups. All this, in addition, knowing that strong encryption is not applied in these two cases .

Don't lose sight of the problems WhatsApp is having in Brazil throughout this year. While judicial institutions request information and conversations in the form of evidence on different judicial investigations, WhatsApp refuses to offer data that it claims it does not have.By defending his encryption, he ensures that he does not have copies of the messages or any other type of proof to provide. As punishment, different judges have ordered the cessation of the courier service. Outages that do not usually last more than 24 hours, after which time other instances usually lift the blocking order. Now this could change considering this security breach.