Users reminded to always be wary of where they install apps from
What’s happened?A fake version of the WhatsApp messaging app is suspected of being created by an Italian spyware company to snoop upon individuals and steal sensitive data.
Who is behind the fake WhatsApp?The bogus app, uncovered by cybersecurity researchers at Citizen Lab and journalists at Motherboard, appears to be linked to an Italian firm called Cy4gate which develops “lawful interception” technology.
“Lawful interception?” Do you mean spyware?Yes, it’s spyware – but spyware that is created by firms to sell to law enforcement bodies, intelligence agencies, and governments.
How do we know this type of spyware might not be abused? Can the people who buy spyware from Cy4gate be trusted?Good question.
And the answer is?Your guess is as good as mine.
So, what does the fake WhatsApp actually do?Information that hackers could gather from an iPhone running the app includes (but is not limited to) the device’s unique identifier (known as a UDID, and assigned by Apple) as well as its unique IMEI.
How would that information be useful?Well, it might help point an intelligence agency in a particular direction, towards a specific individual.
But does the fake WhatsApp app steal any more data from iPhones?The researchers at Citizen Lab were not able to gather details on what other data an attacker might be able to steal from a targeted iPhone running the fake version of WhatsApp.
However, it’s hard to imagine that having installed a fake version of WhatsApp onto a ..
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