Heena Sharma Blog

  WhatsApp is one of the most commonly used instant messaging service, with a global user base of more than two billion. This Facebook-owned platform has around 400 million users in India, and that makes the country one of its biggest markets. Once a basic messaging platform, WhatsApp now supports video calling, file sharing, voice messages, etc, and boasts end-to-end encryption for privacy. One of WhatsApp’s key features is end-to-end encryption, which means the messages sent using WhatsApp are visible only to the sender and receiver of the message. On paper, WhatsApp seems to be a secure instant messaging platform with privacy at its core. However, the recent incidents where chat details of several Bollywood personalities have allegedly been leaked have brought back questions around WhatsApp’s privacy and security. Read More

Senior government officials in multiple US-allied countries were targeted earlier this year with hacking software that used Facebook-owned instant messaging app WhatsApp to take over users' phones, according to people familiar with the messaging company's investigation. Sources familiar with WhatsApp’s internal investigation into the breach said a “significant” portion of the known victims were high-profile government and military officials spread across at least 20 countries in five continents. The hacking of a wider group of top government officials' smartphones than previously reported suggests the WhatsApp cyber intrusion could have broad political and diplomatic consequences. WhatsApp filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Israeli hacking tool developer NSO Group. The Facebook-owned software giant alleges that NSO Group built and sold a hacking platform that exploited a flaw in WhatsApp-owned servers to help clients hack into the cellphones of at least 1,400 us...