WhatsApp is a messaging platform owned by Facebook that is incredibly popular.
In fact, WhatsApp is considered to be the most frequented chatting service across the globe.
The software’s simple interface and host of features is surely responsible for such a success.
But recently it appeared the app had been plagued by a huge vulnerability.
Security researcher for Google’s Project Zero, Natalie Silvanovich, announced WhatsApp was suffering from a compromise at the end of August.
She explained a “memory corruption bug” was present and could occur if a user answers a phone call from a “malicious peer”.
Silvanovich added the end result of the bug was that the device in question would “crash in a few seconds”.
And to demonstrate the serious vulnerabilities present, she even posted code to reproduce the issue.
The discovery led to Tavis Ormandy, a vulnerability researcher at Google, declaring the issue could “completely compromise WhatsApp”.
He noted: “This is a big deal.
“Just answering a call from an attacker could completely compromise WhatsApp.”
Silvanovich insisted both Android and iOS devices were being affected.
Most notably WhatsApp Web, the online service that allows users to carry on their conversations with friends and family, was not plagued by the compromise.
But WhatsApp has now fixed the bug, according to Silvanovich.
She said: “This issue was fixed on September 28 in the Android client and on October 3 in the iPhone client.”
However, the Facebook-owned firm has not publicly commented on the matter.