Crash friends WhatsApp with just a message

Two India based security researchers, Indrajeet Bhuyan and Saurav Kar, both 17-year old teenagers have found a vulnerability in the popular messaging app WhatsApp, which allows anyone to remotely crash WhatsApp by just sending a specially crafted message.

            In a demonstration, they showed how a 2000 words (2kb in size) message written in special characters can crash WhatsApp messenger app of the person who has received it and also who has send it. Previously also there was a similar vulnerability in WhatsApp in which if a person sends a huge message ( size greater than 7mb), it will crash victim’s device and app both immediately, but this new exploit allow attacker to send a very small size message(2 kb) to the victim.

            The user who receives the specially crafted message will have to delete his/her whole conversation with the attacker and will have to start a new one, because opening the message keeps on crashing the WhatsApp.

            According to the duo, the reported vulnerability has been tested on Gingerbread, Jellybean, Kitkat, and all the above Android Operating systems and it works successfully on them.

            Similarly in a WhatsApp group if a group member intentionally sends a specially crafted message, then everyone will have to exit from the group. Also for example, if I don’t want that someone should have records of my chat with them, then I can simply send the same message exploit to that person.

            This vulnerability has not been tested on iOS, but it is sure that all versions of WhatsApp are affected by this bug including 2.11.431 and 2.11.432. But the attack does not work on windows 8.1.

            WhatsApp which is bought by Facebook for $19 billion in February 2014, has over 600 Million while writing this post, and according to researchers no of users affected by this vulnerability could be 500 Million.

           

            Reecently WhatsApp was in news for making end-to-end encryption on all text messages as a default feature to boost online privacy and security of its users. The app maker describes this as the “largest deployment of end-to-end encryption ever”.

WhatsApp Adds End to end Encryption

Good news for all WhatsApp users. Finally the WhatsApp messenger has made End to End encryption a default feature, boosting online privacy of its users around the world. Earlier WhatsApp had no encryption and it was very easy for hackers to hijack the session and read personal messages.

WhatsApp, most popular messaging app with 600 Million users as of October 2014, has partnered with Open Whisper Systems to boost its privacy and security by implementing strong end-to-end encryption on all text messages.

The strong end-to-end encryption here means that even Mark Zuckerberg himself can't pry into your conversations, even if asked by law enforcement officials. The app maker describe this move as the "largest deployment of end-to-end encryption ever."

The Open Whisper System is a non-profit software organisation started by security researcher Moxie Marlinspike, who is behind the development of TextSecure app used for encryption. Over the past three years, his team has been in the process of developing a 'modern, open source, strong encryption protocol' for messaging service, which is now being incorporated into Whatsapp.

"We have a way to go until all mobile platforms are fully supported, but we are moving quickly towards a world where all WhatsApp users will get end-to-end encryption by default," Open Whisper System said in a blog post. 

"We're excited to incorporate what we've learned from this integration into our future design decisions, and to bring this experience to bear on integrations that we do with other companies and products in the future."

There are some limits to WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption, as so far, it only works on Android platform (with iOS coming soon) and covers only text messaging. Also the app is now open to potential man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks because there's no way to check or verify the identity of the person you are messaging.

WhatsApp was bought by Facebook for $19 billion in February. The popular app has been criticized over the years for a series of security and privacy issues. But after the announcement of this rollout, it has been praised over the internet by security folks.

"WhatsApp deserves enormous praise for devoting considerable time and effort to this project," reads the post. "Even though we're still at the beginning of the rollout, we believe this already represents the largest deployment of end-to-end encrypted communication in history."

Other encryption messaging apps do exist currently, including Cryptochat, Silent Text and Telegram, but according to the Verge, WhatsApp will be the largest to implement this type of end-to-end encryption ever.

Open Whisper Systems is a company built from open source contributors and a dedicated team to advance "state of the the art" secure communication, and is best known as the developer of the Signal, Redphone, and TextSecure apps.

Best Backup app in Android: Super Backup

This is the best Backup app I have ever found on Android. As you can see from the image above, it can backup apps, sms, contacts, call logs, calendars and bookmarks i.e. it can backup everything that you would like to on Android. With more than 1,000,000+ downloads it is certainly the best Backup app on Android.

Features of Super Backup:

·         Backup apps to SD card

·         Backup contacts, SMS, call logs, bookmarks, and calendars to SD card

·         Batch restore apps from SD card (need root)

·         Restore contacts, SMS, call logs, bookmarks, and calendars from SD card

·         Can select SMS conversations to backup

·         Delete the backup data on SD card

·         Schedule automatic backups

·         Auto upload scheduled backup files to your Gmail

·         Show last backup count and time

·         User can change backup folder path in Settings

Any mobile user would not like to turn their back on a free app with that feature list.

One of the first steps you must take is to set up the location of your backup. Hopefully, you have an SD card in your phone to back up to. In order to set this option, tap on the wrench icon on the main page. Tap the settings, backup path, select External Storage Card, and then tap OK. Super Backup will now be set to backup to your external memory, this is much safer than backing up to the internal memory, should the phone die or you do a Factory reset.

Backup apps:

 The main difference between Super Backup app and others are that for app backup it can backup them with their data. For ex it can backup WhatsApp with their data so after restoring it with the Super Backup you won’t have to verify your mobile no again. It will have all the messages or chats. With Super Backup you can select some apps which you want to backup or you can backup all the apps.

You can give backup a name or continue with the default name, also there is an option to send the backup via email if you want you can send it.

Backup SMS, Contacts, Call Logs, Calendars, Bookmarks:

·         In Backup you have two options: “Backup” and “Backup Conversations”. SMS Backup allows you to backup/restore conversations, view the backups, send the backups to email, delete backups, and delete all messages.

·         Contacts Backup allows you to backup, restore, view, send to email, and delete backups/all contacts.

·         Call Logs Backup allows you to backup, restore, view, send to email, and delete backups/all call logs

·         Calendars Backup allows you to backup, restore, send to email, delete backups/all calendars

·         Bookmarks Backup allows you to backup, restore, view backups, send to email, delete backups/all bookmark.

With Super Backup you can schedule the time of Backup for SMS, Contacts and Call Logs. There is also an option to directly send Backup to your Gmail account.

What’s your thought on this Super Backup app? Do let us know in the comments section.

Now Whatsapp available for computer users

Whatspp which is available for multiple mobile operating systems has become very popular and nearly every Smartphone user nowadays has it in their mobile. It allows us to stay in touch with our friends for free & share anything like images, photos, videos, sound-clips with them for absolutely free.

But what about those who don’t have Smartphone’s. They were left out, but not now. Now I will show you a technique with the help of which you can access whatsapp on your computer also.

 

  1.> To use Whatspp you will have to download a Android emulator. To download Android emulator, go to www.youwave.com and download emulator. Emulator is available as trial for 7 days but you can use it as long as you want by changing system date or using Time stopper application. You can also use BlueStacks application which is another android emulator. To directly download emulator click here link or go here.

  2.> After installing the emulator, it will take some time to run the first time, then click on Help > instructions to see the path of your working directory.

  

  3.>Then download the Whatspp application or whatspp.apk from here Link.

  4.> Copy the whatspp.apk file in the directory.

  5.> Click on View > Redraw icons and you will see whatsapp shortcut.

  6.>Configure Whatspp on Windows PC.

  7.>Double click Whatspp on YouWave.

  8.> Register using mobile phone. Don’t use mobile no. already registered with              Whatsapp. You won’t be able to verify by text so wait for call verification.

  9.> Whatsapp will call you and will provide you with verification code to enter on    screen. Done.

  10.>To see your Whatsapp friends you will have to add your contacts on Android application and not on Whatsapp.

What’s your thought on this 100,000,000+ (on Android only) downloaded app? Do let us know in the comments section.

YouTube Download-er application for Android Operating system

Android is the most popular mobile operating system. But there is not a single app in Google Play store to download YouTube videos. This is because Google’s privacy policy does not allow anyone to download YouTube videos. But still you can find some apps for android on the Internet to download YouTube videos. Here I have listed some apps to download YouTube videos which I have myself tried. So 

 1)     TubeMate YouTube Download-er:

Features of TubeMate YouTube Download-er:

* Fast download mode(with multiple connections for a download)
* Multiple download resolution options
* Background, multi-download
* Resume downloading
* Convert to MP3 (powered by MP3 Media Converter)
* Playlist as video/audio(powered by Meridian Player)
* YouTube search and related videos suggestions

I have personally tried many YouTube Download-er but i liked this the most. We can search for YouTube videos with inbuilt search option. To download videos a green arrow is provided at the bottom. You have to click on it to download videos. After clicking you will get videos in these options:

After clicking on the video resolution you want to download it will look like this.

1920x1080(Full-HD): Galaxy Tab, Galaxy S2, PC
1280x720(HD): high-end devices
640x360: general devices
320x240: low-end devices
640x360, 854x480(FLV) : Android 2.1 and over
(the available options depend on the quality of the uploaded video and your device)

TubeMate also provide YouTube Download-er for every other popular operating system be it mobile or computer. Link for TubeMate website : Link

      You can download TubeMate YouTube video download-er for android from here: Link

      

1)    YouTube Download-er:

For Android 3+

It is similar to TubeMate YouTube Download-er in that, it also provides various video resolution to choose for download.

It also converts YouTube videos to audio/mp3 format.

*)  Press an item to download the video locally (on the device) or to send the download via SSH to a remote PC. Destination machine requirements: Bash and Wget. Other SSH info available;
*)  Long-press an item and choose between copy to clipboard or share link as text.
Note: such a link (differently from when you send it via SSH) can be only used from the same device where it has been created OR from the same LAN, if you share it to another PC.
From v2.0, extract or convert the audio to mp3 from a downloaded video (dowload FFmpeg and choose extraction).

To download YouTube Download-er click here: Link