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Watch Hackers Using SS7 to Hijack Whatsapp

By Eric Priezkalns
Privacy & Intellectual Property
End-to-end encryption in messaging tools like Whatsapp can be rendered irrelevant by duplicating the victim's account.

A recent YouTube video purports to show how hackers can take control of a Whatsapp account in order to read the victim’s messages and assume their identity. Although Whatsapp benefits from relatively secure end-to-end encryption, the problem of breaking that encryption is avoided by using SS7 messages to facilitate the creation of a bogus duplicate Whatsapp account, which then takes the place of the original. The video was made by Russian security firm Positive Technologies, who have also posted a blog explaining the techniques they use to take over Whatsapp and Telegram accounts. Watch below as they walk step-by-step through the hijacking of a Whatsapp account.

https://youtu.be/fDJ-88e_06A

Eric Priezkalns
Eric Priezkalnshttp://revenueprotect.com

During his career, Eric has been a Director of Risk Management for a national telco, the Chief Executive of the Risk & Assurance Group, a Chief Marketing Officer for a software business, a consultant, a public speaker and the publisher of Commsrisk since its launch in 2006. Look here for more about the history of Commsrisk and the role played by Eric.

The comms providers that Eric has worked for include Qatar Telecom, Cable & Wireless, T‑Mobile, Sky and Worldcom. In addition to his proficiency at speaking about the current scamdemic, Eric is also a qualified chartered accountant and a subject matter expert in consumer protection, enterprise risk management, fraud prevention, data integrity and billing accuracy. Eric was the lead author of Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers, published by CRC Press. He can be reached through the contact form on this website.

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