WhatsApp ‘flaw’ lets anyone lock you out of the app — but it’s complicated

A new loophole in WhatsApp‘s authentication system allows an attacker to lock you out of the app, or in other words, deactivate your account. This sounds scary if you use the app frequently, but it’s worth noting the process to pull this off is fairly complicated and takes about 36 hours to execute. Earlier this week, security researchers Luis Márquez Carpintero and Ernesto Canales Pereña shared their discovery of this flaw through an article in Forbes. Here’s how it works: After installing WhatsApp, the attacker tries to login through your number by requesting authentication codes. WhatsApp blocks sending codes for 12 hours after a certain number of…

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