When Do We Say Enough to WhatsApp and the Facebook Overlords?
Lo and behold, WhatsApp vulnerabilities are making front page news. At this point, if you are still using the platform, I am curious if you are naïve or don’t give a damn about your privacy. If you are unaware of the most recent scam well, you’re in luck; it’s the exact same one as it always has been. You can read about the most recent issue here but, the gist of it is this. You receive a message from a friend’s hacked account, with a code and a request to provide it due to an account lockout. Want to take a guess at what happens next? Did you guess that your account gets hacked as well? Putting your contacts at risk to spam messages and fraudulent requests for money? then you have deleted all remnants of this garbage from your mobile device like the smart boy or girl I know you are. But is deleting it enough?
With over 2 billion users, what does it take to send a message to Nick Lovrien, Facebook’s Chief Security Officer? You are the CISO of an $85 billion company now. This isn’t the State Department boardroom. And you were a CIA operative for Christ’s sake. Is your solution, the Facebook Bug Bounty Program (a real thing by the way, and you can read about it here)? News flash: if it’s a persistent issue, your mitigation techniques aren’t working.
Nick’s LinkedIn picture has LGBTQ+ pride colors displayed currently. Another virtue signaling corporation pulling the pride support sleight of hand. It is time for us to pull our own. Let’s all wave back with one hand and jump over to a different platform at long last with the other.
