WhatsApp and its Privacy Conundrum: Trackers Can See Your Status

The status flaw of WhatsApp is enabling stalkers to track and get user details

According to The News Minute report, the National Crime Records Bureau had recorded cases of cyberstalking and cyberbullying of women in their crime database for the first-ever time in 2017 with around 555  cases being registered in the year from across India. This did not mean that it was not happening before, but it got little attention and a lack of statistical data to support it. With the advent of the internet, everything became easier and faster, simultaneously opening new avenues for cyberattackers and hackers. The recent report on WhatsApp's status flaw is yet another evidence of the increasing cyber threats and degrading data privacy strategies.

A few days back, Traced, a mobile security app published a report on WhatsApp's status loophole and how cyberstalkers are misusing it for their advantage. In March 2020, Whatsapp shared the news of reaching 2 billion users worldwide and in its blog talked about the safety encryptions that the app follows. But the recent incident highlights that despite promising such a safe platform, the app almost forgot to address the other flaws.

According to the Traced report, their CTO  Matt Boddy, while pondering into different WhatsApp online status tracking apps and websites discovered that if a person enters any mobile number, the tracker provides the exact date and time that person opened WhatsApp. They also found that entering another phone along with the first one enables the cyberattackers to find out whether these two numbers are having a conversation in the app.  The report reveals the marketing taglines used by some of these online trackers and one of them says, "If you suspect a cheating spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend, the (tracker)'s Whatsapp last seen tracker online can help you to confirm whether or not your suspicions are really true."

And another one allows parents to track their children.

WhatsApp has a security feature that enables its users to hide the 'last seen', but that does not come to any use here since your online status is displayed the minute you enter into WhatsApp. The WhatsApp security setting needs to be more alert in such scenarios and find a way to stop this privacy invasion.

WhatsApp Messenger is one of the popular social media platforms and thus is easily accessible from around the globe. This WhatsApp status flaw will encourage many stalkers to monitor their targets with ease.

This is not the first time we are witnessing a privacy concern regarding the social media platforms out there. Recently, Facebook was in news for a massive data leakage, which gave away the personal details of many users to hackers and dark webs. WhatsApp itself garnered attention last year for changing its privacy policies and creating confusion among the users, which gradually saw people leaving the app and entering Telegram.

A report by Hacker News mentioned how WhatsApp addressed two security vulnerabilities in their app for android recently that could have caused a 'man-in-the-disk' model attack and would have led to the compromise of sensitive information exchanged through the app. While resolving such intricate issues, why did the app leave such a loophole even after acknowledging its existence in their security terms and conditions is an important question to ask.

Creating an online tracking system is not an unattainable process anymore. Many apps and websites are offering free online tracking systems. One of the websites even describes elaborately how to develop a WhatsApp online tracker to monitor the activity of desired people. The article says how selenium and Xpath can automate the operations to create a tracking app through a python script.

It is a bit unsettling to know how easily people can be monitored without consent, stalked, and controlled in today's world. Social media giants should take immediate actions against these privacy invasions and there should be strict strategies to restrict such spying apps.