A vulnerability in WhatsApp that can enable an attacker to intercept shared locations has been acknowledged, but not yet fixed.
The bug was identified by researchers with the University of New Haven Cyber Forensics Research & Education Group. A video posted on Sunday demonstrates the vulnerability.
Users of the popular cross-platform messaging app must locate themselves on an in-app version of Google maps before sharing their locations, but because that Google maps location image is retrieved over an unencrypted “tunnel,” an attacker can intercept the data using a man-in-the-middle attack or a rogue access point, according to a Sunday post.
The researchers reported the bug to the WhatsApp security team, according to the post, which adds that a fix will be rolled out on all platforms in the next release.
