Skip to main content

Hackers can figure out when you go to sleep via a WhatsApp flaw

WhatsApp is a great way to connect with your friends and family around the world, but it turns out it may also be a great way for a hacker or stalker to keep tabs on when two people are communicating. That’s thanks to a new flaw discovered in the app by software engineer Rob Heaton, who was able to exploit the flaw by creating a Chrome extension with a minimal four lines of code.

The flaw came about because of the fact that as part of WhatsApp, your “online” status — whether you’re online or not — can be checked by any of your contacts. What that means is that when you go offline and then come back online to read a message, that action is being logged. Those online and offline actions from both participants in the conversation can then be correlated to identify when two people are messaging each other.

Recommended Videos

The code could even be tweaked to correlate more than two people messaging each other, and while that would require a little more code, the principle remains the same. Using the data collected, Heaton was even able to identify when users were going to sleep by seeing their first and last “online” statuses for the day.

Unfortunately, there’s really nothing you can do to prevent hackers from being able to spy on you in this manner. Using WhatsApp, you can set the app to show your “last seen” statuses to either everyone, only contacts, or no one, but no such feature exists for your online status, leaving things somewhat open.

Heaton went on to note that it would be pretty easy for this information to be collected on a mass scale, then sold to companies for the purpose of advertising. For example, people with strange sleeping patterns might be good candidates for sleeping pill advertisements.

While this is certainly a privacy issue, it’s not clear if WhatsApp will ever make a fix. The online status feature has been a part of WhatsApp since its inception, and the company may not want to change it. Still, it would be pretty easy to allow users to choose who sees their online status, as they can with their “last seen” status.

Christian de Looper
Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…
WhatsApp makes move to cut the number of spam messages you get
WhatsApp logo on a phone held in hand.

Are you tired of seeing spam messages and getting notifications about being added to random chat groups from people you don't know? WhatsApp is working to limit the amount of spam messages you receive.

According to a report from TechCrunch, the chat platform announced on Tuesday that it will be testing monthly limits on the number of broadcast messages from both individual and business accounts in the coming weeks as part of an effort to reduce the amount of spam you'll get from those accounts whether you follow them or not. However, it's not entirely clear how many limits there will be.

Read more
WhatsApp might finally let you dodge video calls
Reminders feature in WhatsApp.

A new feature has been found in the latest WhatsApp beta version (2.25.7.3 for Android) that gives users the option to turn off their video before accepting a video call.

Right now, when you receive a video call on WhatsApp, your only options are to reject it or accept it and then quickly turn off your video. This is an obvious and pretty annoying infringement on users' privacy, forcing them to either show their faces or go to the trouble of covering their cameras until they hit the "off" button.

Read more
WhatsApp makes it easier to get the best out of Meta AI
Meta AI WhatsApp widget.

Meta has found another place to push its eponymous AI, after injecting it as a standalone chat character in the world’s most popular messaging app. The latest public beta build of WhatsApp now allows users to create a dedicated widget for Meta AI.

You can either go with a condensed view, or an expanded view where you see three different types of controls. The feature is rolling out with build number v2.25.6.14 of the app via Google Play Store.

Read more