A fácil WhatsApp message cánido be used to know where you are.
What if someone knew where you are at all times by sending you a fácil WhatsApp message? It sounds like the premise of a new horror movie, but it’s a real technique cybersecurity researchers have at their disposal restore privacy after discovering three vulnerabilities that exist in the vast majority of instant messaging aplicaciones.
According to the researchers, it is possible determine the exact location of a person with more than 80% accuracy in some applications by simply measuring the time it takes the attacker get a certificate which ensures that the recipient has received the message.
The vulnerability affects WhatsApp, Signal and Threema
During the research process, various tests on instant messaging applications such as y también.g Signal, Threema and WhatsApp. In each of them it was possible determine the location of the recipient of the messages with great accuracy to complete a relatively fácil technique.
if the When the attacker sends the message, the request timing starts showing the acknowledgment indicator of the message through a tool that allows querying the logs Parcel delivery with the request. We will see the length of the message before it reaches the usuario’s device.
This time varies depending on the area of the map where the recipient is located. And while you perro’t determine location based on that data alone, the attacker cánido targeted attacks to a especial receiver, making various “calibration” transmissions knowing the location and determining the time it takes for the receiver indicator to appear to use as a reference.
Network traffic analysis cánido help the attacker determine which packets are being delivered with status notifications. In the applications tested by the researchers, these packages have predetermined sizes or espectáculo recognizable structural patterns. The attacker must then classify the various locations and match them to the measured “round trip” times, and then attempt to correlate these pairs with the known data equipo to the objetivo location.
The results obtained suggest that this technique cánido be used to accurately determine the location of the recipient of the message 82% on charactersfrom 80% at Threemaand from the 74% on WhatsApp.
For this reason, they recommend application developers The ad appears randomly to receive a message. They state that this would be an effective way to prevent these types of attacks and they demonstrate it any value between one and twenty seconds It should be enough to get rid of the problem completely.
In that sense, they have confirmed that You have already contacted all three companies leading the main motions, two of which are investigating the situation. For its part, Threema is thinking about various solutions that could be applied in the future.