Why does WhatsApp collect and store confidential information about the user and their conversations?

The undisputed leader among instant messaging solutions is WhatsApp, which has over 900 million active users. It has become an integral part of messaging smartphones. Despite this, there are constantly new problems related to the security of the application, which causes many users serious concerns about the transparency of the service.

From fraud to malicious programs that are popular with this service, from applications that monitor users, to all sorts of vulnerabilities - it would seem that there is no end to the problems raised in the group report Cyber ​​Forensic Research & Education Group researchers at the University of New Haven in the United States.
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Thanks to their own expert development, the researchers were able to decipher some of the communications established between the WhatsApp servers and users of this application, in cases where any type of communication is exchanged through the application.

The researchers found that, among other things, the popular messaging service collects and stores confidential information about the user and the conversations that he or she is carrying out. None of this is a prerequisite for the normal functioning of the service, and therefore there is a desire to ask the developers of WhatsApp why they are doing this and why have they not announced this before?



The application keeps records of all calls that we make, their recipients, their duration . Moreover, the authors of the study admit that encryption keys can also be sent in some way during these communications. Although this has not yet been proven, this may be just the tip of the iceberg of all the security problems of this chat service.

A group of experts from the University of New Haven encouraged other researchers to use their utility, which they developed in the hope of finding new security gaps, because there are also concerns about similar issues with other instant messaging services such as Facebook Messenger and Telegram.

Recently, we have already seen WhatsApp take certain measures to try to improve the security they offer their users to ensure their privacy. These measures included the introduction of a well-known and controversial double-tick, some specific updates, as well as a more reliable encryption system.

However, in order for the system to remain user-friendly, some recommended security measures were not entirely appropriate, since they may adversely affect the user experience. WhatsApp is trying to find that difficult balance between security and usability in order to “stake out” the title of the largest and most secure instant messaging service on the market.