Malwarebytes found a bug on Whatsapp.

Malwarebytes found a bug on Whatsapp that opened the way for a malware outbreak to enter the group chat.

If you talk about chat applications, many people may be familiar with LINE, but international users may be more familiar with WhatsApp, which has a wider global user. Although the application has regular security improvements, it is not easy to have bugs, and those bugs are also very dangerous.

The official website of Malwarebytes, a global anti-malware tool developer, mentioned how the Project Zero research team from Google has detected a security vulnerability on the famous chat application WhatsApp, a bug-type vulnerability that, if a user sends a file into a newly created Chat Group, leads to an automatic download by the user who enters the room, allowing hackers to use this channel for malware release, as malware files sent to the chat group are downloaded by other users as soon as they send them, allowing for widespread malware distribution by The vulnerability will be on the Android version of the application, while the iOS version has not been identified by the research team as to whether such a vulnerability exists.

Although META, the company that owns the chat application, knew about it and updated the server during November 2025. In the past 2568), however, Google reported that the update could only partially solve the problem. Google has recommended that WhatsApp users turn off automatic download settings or turn on Advanced Privacy Mode to block automatic download capabilities. In addition, if there is a new update to WhatsApp, they ask users to update the app regularly.

The research team also introduced a way to shut down the automatic download system. Users can shut down the system in the following ways.

Open WhatsApp application

Tap the three points in the right corner. Select Settings.

Select the Storage and data topic (in some models, it may be used as Data and storage usage).

In the Media auto-download subheading, users will see the words when using mobile data, when connected on Wi ‐ Fi., and when roaming.

Under these 3 headings, tick out all the Photos, Audio, Videos, Documents media types and press OK to confirm the change.

It also introduced a way to prevent WhatsApp from saving photos in the Gallery section. This can be done even while WhatsApp is downloading content. This method is as follows:

In the Settings section, select Chat.

Press Close Media visibility or similar topics like Show media in gallery.

This change will result in a potentially malicious file being trapped in a WhatsApp that acts as a dummy or a Sandbox that prevents malware from being installed conveniently (if the malware does not have the ability to break the Sandbox to the real system).

And since in this form of attack, one user must accidentally add a stranger to the group, it is necessary to protect who can join the chat group with the following privacy settings:

In the Settings section, select Privacy.

Select Groups.

Change from Everyone (Everyone) to My Contacts (Listed Recorded) or My Contacts, except followed by an unwanted number. To prevent a suspicious number from being able to join the group, it is absolute.

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