A new bug was discovered this weekend on WhatsApp. This is a specific message that, if sent, immediately closes the application to Android users.
The discovery came during the week, when a computer security researcher detected that if the text "http://wa.me/settings" is sent, this generates an abrupt closure for Android phones. That is, every time you want to enter a chat that contains that message, the app will close. This is what is known as a "text-bomb" or "bomb message".
The bug, as it is called to this type of failure in the computer environment, was first detected in groups but also applies to individual messages.
When sending it, a denial of service (DoS) problem occurs: "It occurs when an attacker manages to obstruct, in some way, access to a certain service by legitimate users," Jaime Restrepo, an expert in computer security and one of those who raised the alerts when learning of the problem, explains to Clarín.
"To make it easier to understand, imagine that someone inserts an incorrect key into the lock of your house and breaks it inside to obstruct the keyhole: this would amount to a DDoS attack, because this will prevent you, as a legitimate user of the house, from being able to enter it," adds the founder of DragonJAR.
"What happens is not a vulnerability, it is a bug, the famous programming error. When the app is closed it is an 'uncontrolled exception': in Creole, it was hung. There is an error in the code and the app closes because it does not know what to do and hangs, "explains Maximiliano Firtman, expert programmer in applications of IT Master.
Thus, to be able to exploit this bug you only need a member of the group to send that message or, even, you can also break a chat between two people.
Luckily, there are two ways to fix it.
The Bug: How It Works and How to Fix It
If for some reason this happens, what is needed is for someone from an iOS device to delete that message. If you do not have anyone who has an iPhone, the alternative is to do it via WhatsApp Web.
Of course, the safest thing would be to delete and/or block the member who sent that message to prevent it from happening again.
It is not yet clear why this problem occurs. "We don't have much information about it yet, however, it's possible that it's a problem related to the interpretation of that particular URL, in the WhatsApp app for Android. We must bear in mind that the URL wa.me' is official WhatsApp, "recalls Restrepo.
"The link, wa.me, is what is called 'deep linking'. It is the possibility of making a link that goes to a particular place in an app: for example, a specific chat with a person or a WhatsApp group, "says Firtman.
"What may be happening here is that when there is a link wa.me, the app tries to verify if that person who is being linked the user has it scheduled or not, to put the name. And when it goes to look, since it is not a phone number but says 'settings', it must be hung up, "interprets the expert.
However, it is likely that this is one more failure in a long list of problems of "text bombs" that the application already had.
In 2018, a text with a specific character of the Indian language generated a crash on iOS devices and disabled access to WhatsApp and other messaging applications.
Perhaps one of the best known was one called "Effective Power", which was first detected in May 2015, and which had nothing to do with Whatsapp but with the iMessage service.
However, the mechanics are always the same: a type of text that breaks, unsubscribes or deletes messages from an application.
Publicizing the solution is the temporary antidote to the problem, until WhatsApp fixes it with an update, which surely will not take long to arrive because of the scale of this problem.
WhatsApp has not yet issued a statement on the matter. Photo EFE
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