'Pretty much the entire suite of apps that 'talk' over the internet could be vulnerable,' said Tom Uren, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's International Cyber Policy Centre.
onto both iPhone and Android phones. The security weakness reportedly could have been used to tap calls made with the app.-owned WhatsApp encouraged users to update the application in order to protect against "potential targeted exploits designed to compromise information stored on mobile devices."
That's because the apps are "constantly updated" to introduce new features, said Ori Sasson, founder of cyber-intelligence firm S2T. "The unfortunate reality is that most messaging apps have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by sophisticated cyber spies," he said. "No messaging service is bulletproof."
In the case of the WhatsApp attack, however, it was about "secure application development" rather than how well the app protects privacy and security, said Uren of ASPI, a Canberra-based think tank.The onus is on developers to create secure apps, said experts, although one added it may not be realistic to expect a group to identify all vulnerabilities.
He added that he likes messaging app Signal, in part because its philosophy is about building secure and private messaging, though that doesn't make it "immune."told CNBC that its app provides a "circle of trust" where users have to accept an invite before they can receive calls or messages from other users. Hence, what happened to WhatsApp "could not happen" with BBM Enterprise, claimed BlackBerry Head of Corporate Communications Sarah McKinney.
In the case of WhatsApp, he said "significant research and effort" is required in order to identify and exploit a vulnerability. Defects in the operating system may also have been needed.
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