Pavel Durov, the founder of the messaging app Telegram, claimed that WhatsApp deliberately placed security flaws so that governments and law enforcement agencies could exploit it.
The founder of messaging app Telegram has urged people to use ‘any messaging app’ other than WhatsApp to protect their phones from being hacked.
Pavel Durov cited a security bug in WhatsApp last week that could have allowed a hacker to hijack someone’s phone by sending a video to their number.
He claimed on Telegram,
‘Hackers can gain full access to everything on WhatsApp users’ phones.’
Every year we come across some bug in WhatsApp that puts everything on its users’ phones at risk. It doesn’t matter if you are the richest person on earth – if you have WhatsApp installed on your phone, the data of every app on your phone is accessible.
The Russian tech billionaire, who lives in self-imposed exile from his home country, claimed the security flaws were ‘back doors’ to allow governments, law enforcement agencies, and hackers to bypass spying and other security measures. can do
Pavel Durov had previously claimed that “Until fundamental changes are made to the way WhatsApp works, it will never be secure.”
He wrote,
‘Here I am not urging people to switch to Telegram. Telegram does not need additional promotion.
‘You can use any messaging app you like, but stay away from WhatsApp – it’s been a surveillance tool for 13 years now.’
When contacted for comment, a Meta spokesman said:
‘This is complete nonsense.’
