WhatsApp denies encrypted messages on its platform can be intercepted

New Delhi: WhatsApp has squarely denied the reports that the messenger platform is prone to privacy breach and that its encrypted messages can actually be intercepted.

The Guardian reported on Friday that a security vulnerability that can be used to allow Facebook and others to intercept and read encrypted messages has been found within its WhatsApp messaging service.

“The Guardian posted a story this morning claiming that an intentional design decision in WhatsApp that prevents people from losing millions of messages is a “backdoor” allowing governments to force WhatsApp to decrypt message streams. This claim is false,” said a company spokesperson in a statement sent to TechCrunch.

“WhatsApp does not give governments a “backdoor” into its systems and would fight any government request to create a backdoor. The design decision referenced in the Guardian story prevents millions of messages from being lost, and WhatsApp offers people security notifications to alert them to potential security risks. WhatsApp published a technical white paper on its encryption design, and has been transparent about the government requests it receives, publishing data about those requests in the Facebook Government Requests Report,” it added.

WhatsApp has published a technical white paper on its encryption design. Facebook has also been transparent about the government requests it receives, publishing data about those requests in the Facebook Government Requests Report.

Notably, the WhatsApp security issue was detected by Tobias Boelter in 2016. Boelter is a cryptography and security researcher.

"If WhatsApp is asked by a government agency to disclose its messaging records, it can effectively grant access due to the change in keys," Boelter was quoted as saying.