Table of contents:
We all know that Internet messaging applications are not 100% secure. In fact, every time a researcher goes looking for security holes, he always ends up finding something. This time it was the turn of WhatsApp and Telegram, since sending multimedia files through these platforms does not seem to be entirely safe. The photos and videos you receive via Telegram or WhatsApp are an easy target for hackers.
Regarding normal messages, the problem is different, since both applications apply point-to-point encryption that tries to prevent anyone from knowing these messages.In fact, this encryption has been questioned by many governments because of how difficult it is to decrypt it Let's talk a little more about the subject of images and videos.
Symantec discovers problems in media files sent by messaging
On Android, applications can choose where to save media files such as images, audio files, etc. That is, the multimedia can be accessible through the application but also through other external applications and this is the biggest problem. WhatsApp, by default, saves media to external storage and Telegram only does so when the "Save to Gallery" option is enabled.
This process is what makes both WhatsApp and Telegram vulnerable when receiving multimedia files In fact, if a user has any infected application on your mobile will easily be able to access the photos that the user in question receives via WhatsApp.What's more, even this app could alter the content of the multimedia message before the user in question sees it and that is an even more dangerous problem.
This problem has not been solved for a long time
Researchers have called this attack “Media File Jacking”. The difference with iOS is evident, since in Apple the images are not saved by default in the gallery and that makes them more secure and difficult to suffer an attack. Accessibility on Android has a price and it is this. WhatsApp ensures that changing this system would limit the ease of file sharing that users have and could even create other security problems that currently do not exist. This shows that no one is safe, since even encrypted apps are not 100% secure against a hacker attack.
