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The National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) under the Government of Spain has issued an alert warning about a WhatsApp vulnerability that would allow a hacker to hijack our smartphone and operate it remotely.
This is a qualified notice with a medium level of importance. While it is true that no state infrastructure would be threatened by this failure, the millions of Spaniards who use WhatsApp , the most popular instant messaging application in our country , are currently threatened by this vulnerability.
"A vulnerability has been discovered in versions prior to 2.19.244 of WhatsApp for Android, which could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary remote code, through an image with maliciously manipulated .gif extension , " says the Cybersecurity agency of the State in your notice.
Gifs are a moving image format that has gained great popularity over the past few years and is integrated into instant messaging services such as WhatsApp or Telegram and social networks such as Twitter.
The fault that allows you to hijack your phone resides in the libraries related to the application that are responsible for automatically reproducing the files with GIF extension that have been sent to our Smartphone.
It is also a problem that also affects the image gallery of the phones since many, when opening this application, automatically show the animations of the images in GIF format.
In this way, it would be useful for the attacker to send one of these gifs to the victim . As soon as the file is opened from the WhatsApp gallery, the malicious code is executed next to the preview.
When it is executed, what the malicious code does is install a small program that would allow the offender to access the victim's personal information and achieve functionalities such as accessing all our personal information and remotely managing our phone to record video and audio .
How to fix the problem
According to INCIBE, this is a problem that affects all WhatsApp users with versions prior to 2.19.244.
The best way to solve this problem with WhatsApp is by updating the application, either through the Google Play Store or through the official page of the application, from which we can also download the latest version available to solve this problem.
If we want to carry out the process from the Play Store App on our Android, we must search for "WhatsApp" in its internal browser and then click on the update button.
In the case that we opt for the version of the official WhatsApp page, we must access the "download" option that will be found in the web menu. Once there, we must select the option "download now" and run the .apk file that will be responsible for the installation .
Once we have followed these simple steps we can use our WhatsApp with total normality .
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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