Viber and Whatsapp compromised. What now?
I know that my Viber and Whatsapp accounts on both my iPhones have been compromised. Are there any steps I can take short of never using them again?
iPhone 5c, iOS 8.1.1
And exactly how do you "know" that?
11 replies
How are they compromised? And more importantly how do you know or what makes you think they are compromised?
Good questions. Several messages sent to me by friends have been mysteriously deleted. Also a message was sent by someone other than I to a friend at a time when I was in possession of my phone
Change your password on those services. This very likely has NOTHING to do with the phone itself.
Superlex15 wrote:
there any steps I can take short of never using them again?
Ummm... changing the account passwords didn't come to mind??? This has nothing to do with your phone.
Whatsapp doesn't have a password. It associates with your number via a text message when you first set it up.
Other than that, the only thing you can change is your number. However I'm not entirely sure how one can compromise a Whatsapp account. When you set up a new device with the same number, the previous one gets disassociated with the account.
http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/general/21009863
The only way I can see this happening is at whatsapp's server where the same account account got assigned to a different user.
This would be something to discuss with them though.
Not sure about Viber since I don't use it..
I really appreciate your ideas. If you check on Youtube or just generally you will see that there is plenty of software available for hacking Viber and Whatsapp.
I was hoping that someone in the forum had some ideas for effective countermeasures.
If you look at the available array of hacking software you will never trust the integrity of these systems. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am not a technophobe so I have considered the obvious. Also I now state the obvious that these systems are open to anyone to hack at will to anyone anywhere if they are willing to spend a few $$$.
This has absolutely nothing to do with Apple or the iPhone.
Talk to Viber and Whatsapp support and see what they have to say about it.
From what I saw, with an admittedly short search, most of these hacks seem to apply to Android phones only, and require that the would be hacker have physical access to the phone.
on an iPhone, there's no real way to access its contents remotely, and Whatsapp encrypts its messages before they leave the device.
In short its not something that I would think would likely happen unless there's someone that really really wants to have access to your chats for whatever reason. That is for most of these it would take serious dedication to get anything useful. not just some random hack. Several of the hacks I found had been patched in subsequent versions of Whatsapp, so are no longer accessible.
In short, its unlikely it was a hack, but if it was, you should talk to Whatsapp about it. I'm sure they would like to take a look at how it happened to prevent it form happening in the future.
So basically I have nothing to fear from the above. It does not apply to
iPhone only Android?
On Tuesday, January 13, 2015, Apple Support Communities Updates <
If that app is real then it appears that Viber is flawed, I'd look at how you an delete your account or purge all your history.
Take a look at what the EFF have to say on the subject… there are many alternatives that claim to support end to end encryption.
https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard
Notice how Viber & WhatsApp get low scores (I wouldn't use them to call my dog).
Viber and Whatsapp compromised. What now?