WhatsApp is one of the most used, preferred and efficient chat applications for mobile platform out there. The chat platform is in use by almost all consumers who own smartphones today, and is one of the fastest means of communication. However, there are a few elements that are taking advantage of this platform and spamming users around the world.
Well, you can block a person from sending you messages, whenever you need to do it. Blocking a person makes it easy for those who receive spam messages and others who possibly stalk you for no reason. However, if you are part of a group, you cannot block messages from it. All you can do is simply mute it for an x amount of time. If you don’t want to receive messages from a particular group, you have to exit the group and delete it.
Sadly, WhatsApp has failed to implement a few features that are important. One of these features is group additions—if someone adds you to a group, you are placed in it by default, whether you like it or not. If you don’t want to be in the group, you have to delete and exit it manually. Taking advantage of this situation, spam messages are beginning to rise for many WhatsApp users.
For example, you get a message and your notification LED glows. You head on to the notification bar, only to find that you are entered into a group, received a message or advertisement and then thrown out of the group immediately. As irritating as it can be, these messages come in and the spammer has thrown you out of the group within a few seconds, giving you no option to reply to the message as you are no longer a part of the group anymore. Since you don’t know the person, you can block him out, but you will never know if you will receive a similar message from another person. How many can you automatically block?
The spam messages reported are more often an advertisement, especially from dating and escort service, with a phone number or a profile for the male/female escort. Clicking on it will simply make a call or ask to be added to your contact list. The spam messages could also be advertisements and tempting deals with a link, which could take you to a phishing website or a malware injecting website.
In a similar case, a few colleagues known to us have received a message from an unknown number based in the US. The message features a phone number of a female who wants to make friends and we don’t need to explain what happens after that! Another case was reported where a real estate developer created a group, sent out his advertisement and then removed you from the group.
WhatsApp developers need to take this issue seriously and introduce a feature where a person needs to can accept an invitation to a group rather than adding him/her by default. This unsecure feature can pose as a serious security threat if hackers can manage to get a script code via the WhatsApp message. If your phone is rooted, the script can hijack your phone’s operating system, and possibly leak out sensitive information to the hacker. If the hacker manages to run a script intelligent enough to hack through the operating system it could easily damage your smartphone too.
Facebook, WhatsApp, are you listening? This is serious.
