'WhatsApp will never be safe': Telegram boss attacks Facebook-owned messaging app
By: Anthony Cuthbertson | Thursday 16 May 2019
A huge security flaw with WhatsApp that compromised the privacy of 1.5 billion users this week will not be the last and may not even be the worst incident of its kind, the founder of rival messaging app Telegram has warned.
Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov joined mounting criticism against the Facebook-owned app after it was revealed that everything on a WhatsApp user's phone - from private photos and videos, to emails and texts - were accessible to hackers. In a blog post titled 'Why WhatsApp will never be secure', Durov laid out all the reasons he was not surprised by the latest privacy scandal.
"WhatsApp has a consistent history - from zero encryption at its inception to a succession of security issues strangely suitable for surveillance purposes," he wrote. "Looking back, there hasn't been a single day in WhatsApp's 10 year journey when this service was secure."
The app is not open source, meaning security researchers are unable to easily check for vulnerabilities within its underlying software. This could allow governments and hackers to create backdoors into the app that would bypass any security measures that are in place.
Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov joined mounting criticism against the Facebook-owned app after it was revealed that everything on a WhatsApp user's phone - from private photos and videos, to emails and texts - were accessible to hackers. In a blog post titled 'Why WhatsApp will never be secure', Durov laid out all the reasons he was not surprised by the latest privacy scandal.
"WhatsApp has a consistent history - from zero encryption at its inception to a succession of security issues strangely suitable for surveillance purposes," he wrote. "Looking back, there hasn't been a single day in WhatsApp's 10 year journey when this service was secure."
The app is not open source, meaning security researchers are unable to easily check for vulnerabilities within its underlying software. This could allow governments and hackers to create backdoors into the app that would bypass any security measures that are in place.
All posts in this blog are my own personal views (unless explicitly mentioned otherwise) and are not to be associated with any organization or institution related to me.