The Base Camp

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WedaPashi

7:28 AM

Morning Base Camp!

Liam

7:38 AM

Morning all

@RoryAlsop quick security.SE question

couple of my friends seem to of been grabed by a whatsapp scam over the weekend. I'm not sure how it works or what to do to mitigate any issues.

Would the be on topic on Security?

Aravona

7:57 AM

morning all, hope everyone had a nice weekend

Rory Alsop

Morning

Hi @Liam - not sure. It would depend on the question. If it's a "what happened" question then probably not, because there are so many things that could have happened

Generally the worst case is that attackers have your data (web mail password, online banking access etc) so you need to reset all passwords and wipe and reinstall your machine from scratch

Hey @Aravona - working weekend at security conference in Berlin. Is good

Liam

@RoryAlsop I've been trying to figure out how the exploit works but everyone's really vague about how it sent the message. "Oh I just typed your phone number into a web site"..."and it sent a message from your WhatsApp account? Cos that doesn't sound good"

Rory Alsop

8:14 AM

Hmmm - lemme grab one of the folks here who would know about it. Sounds like simple source spoofing, in which case it's a social engineering attack. It has become obvious that WhatsApp is no longer secure, so the recommendation is to move to alternatives (Signal is the currently recommended one I think)

Liam

8:28 AM

@RoryAlsop Yes, you get sent to a web site, where it asks some questions, your then asked ot send it to "10 friends" and they get a copy of the message from whatsapp. I'm concerned because it's come from stephs quite elderly mum and there doesn't appear to be any passwords to reset, etc.

It is starting to make my questions WhatsApp as a communication tool, your right. It should only work for people who have the phone number, it's whole security is based on that phone number. If anyone can spoof it that easily, not good

Rory Alsop

Ahhh - it's using your app to authenticate. So it's not actually doing anything malicious in the first instance, aside from persuading individuals to allow an app to act on their behalf. The problem is that it can send anything it wants "from" that account, so could get targets to click on malicious links, or give away personal data or contact info etc.

Not really anything you can do other than awareness training...

And move to a different platform

(I haven't used WhatsApp for 6 months now as I can't trust it)

OddDeer

Morning

@Liam @RoryAlsop I bought me and some friends Threema. It's really good.

Rory Alsop

8:48 AM

It seems to have a good reputation, yes

and morning @Odd

Aravona

@RoryAlsop sounds busy! :)

Liam

9:05 AM

@RoryAlsop yeah, that's what I thought. There doesn't seem to be a good way to revoke privlages. I've heard of instances where a comprimised account will send a file next and that file is basically MalWare

Liam

9:17 AM

If anyone is satill inter4ested in this it seems to just trigger the info using a built in feature of the app

Q: Start WhatsApp from URL HREF with custom text/content

As you know using the whatsapp url scheme on iphone i can create the following link: href="whatsapp://send?text=blahblah" this is possible due to the url scheme support on ios. im try to create the similar effect for android devices. (but no threw android app, just a normal html page). to my...

So the only issue is the information it's harvested by the people filling in the form

Aravona

9:50 AM

@Liam user error is always the biggest security issue :)

Liam

@Aravona true dat

Liam

10:08 AM

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