[MALWARE] Whatsapp Plus; Can Access User's Personal Information

A recent report from Malware bytes Labs, an American Internet security company, has discovered that a fake version of WhatsApp is being circulatedaround the Internet with malicious intentions to fetch personal information like contacts, texts, media, etc.. from a user’s mobile phone. The fake version of whatsapp named as Whatsapp plus, which is quite popular amongst the users, is said to be a variant of Android/PUP.Riskware.Wtaspin.GB.

The app doesn’t exist on Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Android Package (APK) for WhatsApp Plus is being circulated via blogs and online forums. Whenever a user installs WhatsApp Plus, the app prompts a screen with a gold WhatsApp logo in the centre with a URL as shown in the picture below

Screenshot of whatsapp plus - source techolite.com

It asks for a permission to ‘agree and continue’ which, on accepting, prompts users  to download the latest version of the app from the Google Play store and once it is done, the fake version of WhatsApp redirects the users to a website. The website contains Arabic texts and lets the users to download Android Package (APK) named as ‘Watts Plus Plus WhatsApp’. Downloading the aforesaid application is hazardous to the users and all the crucial information will be accessed by hackers..

The report further mentions that the malicious app offers features like hide ‘typing message’ notification, received texts, reading texts and also lets you hide the notification if you have played a voice clip. It also lets the users to run four WhatsApp accounts, hide double ticks and blue 'read' ticks as well. These features, not even available on the original version, make users overwhelmed to install the application at any cost. The working and data gathering mechanism of the app are being unrevealed by the Malwarebytes Lab

So it is advice to uninstall the application immediately, if you’ve been using it and install the genuine version that is available in the  Google Play Store. It is always recommended to install applications from trusted sources and make sure that you’ve unchecked the option ‘Allow installation from unknown sources’