One Hot Potato: With over 2 billion monthly active users globally, WhatsApp is the world’s most popular mobile messaging app. But the founder of rival service Telegram thinks people should stay away from Meta’s product, which he calls a surveillance tool plagued by persistent security issues.
On Thursday, Pavel Durov wrote in his Telegram channel that people should use any messaging app of their choice, “but stay away from WhatsApp – it’s been a surveillance tool for 13 years now.”
Durov was referring to two security issues discovered in WhatsApp last week that could allow remote code execution on specific devices. The hackers only need to set up a video call with the victim or send them a specially crafted video file. WhatsApp has since released security updates to address the vulnerabilities.
The Russian national, who now lives in self-imposed exile, said even upgrading WhatsApp to the latest version doesn’t guarantee you’ll be safe. He pointed out that recently patched security issues were discovered in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. He also noted that WhatsApp did not have end-to-end encryption before 2016.
“Hackers have full access to everything on WhatsApp users’ phones (!) “Every year we learn about some issue in WhatsApp that puts everything on their users’ devices at risk,” Durov wrote.
Durov says these safety issues are not accidental, but are “rear doors fitted,” each time a new rear door is added and removed. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the richest person on earth – if you have WhatsApp installed on your phone, all your data can be accessed from every app on your device.”
That “richest person on earth” line refers to the former richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos. The Amazon founder’s phone was hacked in 2018 via a WhatsApp video message allegedly sent from the account of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
It is easy to imagine that Durov is humiliating WhatsApp to attract more users to its platform. But the CEO noted that Telegram’s 700 million active users and 2 million daily signups mean the privacy-focused service doesn’t need any extra hype.
When asked about Durov’s claims, a Meta spokesperson told The Independent, “This is complete nonsense.”
Meta isn’t the first tech giant to face criticism from Durov. He went after Apple in 2021 for selling “excessive, obsolete hardware” from the “Middle Ages”. Recently, he said Cupertino “deliberately cripples” web apps by not updating WebKit.
In addition to security vulnerabilities, WhatsApp has faced several claims that it violates users’ privacy, including the controversial Facebook data-sharing policy. A record $267 million was also fined last year for GDPR violations.
