WhatsApp chats deleted from not destroyed altogether – Daily 26

TECHNOLOGY

Saturday July 30, 2016

iOS researcher Jonathan Zdziarski has discovered that retains and stores WhatsApp chats even after they have been removed. According to The Verge, it creates “a treasure of information potential” for anyone with physical access to the device. Data can also be retrieved through a system of remote backup. This vulnerability was found in the iOS version.

The programmer explained that the application does not overwrite the deleted default chats, so that they remain as recoverable. Zdziarski attributes the problem to using SQLite library in the coding of the application, which does not overwrite the default. According to the computer, the only way to eliminate conversations WhatsApp, is to completely remove the application.

The Verge notes that WhatsApp has been praised by privacy advocates when choosing the default encryption end to end through the Signal protocol. However, this system only protects data in transit, while the findings of Zdziarski refer to what happens with this information once the phone come, especially when stored on the local disk device or remote storage iCloud, in the case of iPhones devices.

The average adds that WhatsApp messages are backed up in iCloud without hard coded, so that the discovery means that the police could obtain a record of the talks through a court order, even if the conversation it was removed from the application. The Verge notes that the news should not be alarming to users of WhatsApp, but questions the privacy promises the company made in the field.