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This WhatsApp privacy flaw lets anyone view your photos without unlocking your phone

Maybe an "off" button for Meta AI is what's needed right now.

This WhatsApp privacy flaw lets anyone view your photos without unlocking your phone

A flaw in WhatsApp for Android allows private photos to be viewed without unlocking the device. This vulnerability was discovered by a Twitter/X user and later confirmed by others, including "Mobile Hacker" and NotebookCheck. When a WhatsApp call appears on a user's screen, it can be answered without unlocking the phone, allowing a button to be pressed to apply filters and effects to the video feed, including Meta's AI, which can edit photos.

Instead of locking the screen, the preview of the photos is clearly shown. This loophole is not present on iPhone devices, where WhatsApp must use the native iOS calling interface. While the photos cannot be accessed fully, someone with malicious intent could take pictures of them using another device. WhatsApp and Google have been informed about the issue, and a patch is expected, but no update has been released yet.

In the meantime, users can set WhatsApp's photo and video permissions to "limited" in Android settings to prevent this loophole.

Written by urgent.news from 9to5Google's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.

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