WhatsApp’s has just slammed the door on one of the vulnerabilities still in its app—good news for its 2 billion users, as it beats its rivals to this critical feature…
Secure messaging is on a roll. Never before have we had so much choice of default, end-to-end encrypted platforms at our fingertips. And while we have become used to this with WhatsApp and Signal and iMessage (within Apple’s walled garden), recently even Facebook Messenger and Google Messages have joined the club.
But all that security has always had one leaky vulnerability—the screenshot. And while screenshotting disappearing messages is thankfully disabled, nothing protects posts or normal media shared in 1:1 or group chats from being secretly saved.
This vulnerability also extends to profile photos—and that is a major issue for one very obvious reason. Our accounts quickly become associated with our profile photos, which for most people do not change very often. When accounts are impersonated, it very often includes a copy of that profile photo to trick others.
Well now WhatsApp is calling time on that vulnerability. It has released an update to start blocking screenshots of profile photos. And this is already rolling out. It’s not that surprising this is deploying quickly—blocking screenshots of media on secure messengers is an update Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has personally promoted.
This may seem trivial to many—but it won’t if you have been impersonated and had ghost accounts set up in your name. And it also won’t if you have ever suffered the nightmare of online stalking, where your profile photo can be widely seen and saved.
The pre-release update was first spotted last month by WABetaInfo: “Five years ago, WhatsApp removed the option to allow users to save others’ profile photos—however, it was still possible to take a screenshot of such photos, undermining the intended privacy protection. After installing the latest WhatsApp beta… we discovered that WhatsApp is rolling out a new privacy feature to block screenshots of profile photos!”
As reported by Android Police, that feature has now started going live. “Once Meta officially rolls out screenshot blocking for profile pictures, it will have an edge over Signal. While the latter is a more privacy-focused communication platform, it does not prevent users from taking screenshots of display pictures. Even Telegram lacks an option to prevent profile picture screenshot blocking.”
This feature is long overdue given the impersonation threat that’s so rife across social media. That said, though, there are already settings in your WhatsApp app that make this less of an issue. You can set the app to restrict who can see when you’re online, your status, your group memberships and your profile photo to just your contacts. You should make that change as it’s such an obvious privacy enhancement.
You can expect to see this change in your app soon—albeit it’s not currently a toggle and so won’t appear in your settings—it’s just on by default.
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