Mobile messengers expose billions of users to privacy attacks

From helpnetsecurity.com

mobile messengers privacy

Popular mobile messengers expose personal data via discovery services that allow users to find contacts based on phone numbers from their address book, according to researchers.

When installing a mobile messenger likeĀ WhatsApp, new users can instantly start texting existing contacts based on the phone numbers stored on their device. For this to happen, users must grant the app permission to access and regularly upload their address book to company servers in a process called mobile contact discovery.

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