WhatsApp has been no stranger to phone-breaking bugs and safety breaches over time, with the most recent one but once more inflicting the app to crash your cellphone.

There’s a hyperlink going across the Android model of WhatsApp (wa.me/settings) that, if clicked on, will trigger your cellphone to crash as quickly as you open a gaggle or particular person chat containing it. The precise set off is so simple as opening a chat with the hyperlink, although fortunately the app restarts usually after that, except you occur to open that message thread once more.

The offending hyperlink sends you to the app’s settings web page, which makes it much more malicious for these used to the shortcut. Twitter consumer BruteBee beforehand reported on this problem, which was first found and extensively coated by PandyaMayur, whereas Android Authority confirmed that model 2.23.10.77 of the app is at the moment the one impacted, although it’s nonetheless unknown whether or not different variations have skilled this bugged hyperlink as of now.

It’s much like earlier bugs wherein an in any other case innocuous hyperlink or picture hides a malicious characteristic that wreaks havoc in your cellphone and ends in it crashing. Again in 2018, there have been not less than two of those, one being the notorious black dot within the middle of a WhatsApp message that crashed telephones and the opposite a random Telugu language character in messages that crashed iOS telephones. And in 2020 there was one other set of textual content bombs or ‘crash codes’ that resulted in a crash loop.

The trigger for this problem is almost definitely how WhatsApp resolves the URL for the shortened hyperlink. And whereas there’s no official repair for the bug simply but, Android Police stories of a workaround for the bugged hyperlink till WhatsApp formally does push a patch down. Plainly WhatsApp Internet is proof against the hyperlink’s results, so if you end up a sufferer of fixed cellphone crashes, log into your account by your browser and delete the message with the hyperlink.

Technically this implies that you could additionally ship the hyperlink safely by WhatsApp Internet, although it’s most likely not clever to take action till the bug is totally mounted. Hopefully, that patch will likely be coming in quickly.

Replace: Meta has since responded, stating that this is a matter it beforehand addressed by its official WhatsApp Twitter account. In keeping with an announcement from Meta, “This can be a bug on Android’s finish with their Privateness Dashboard instrument and it solely made it seem as if customers’ microphones had been being accessed – it was not really accessed.”

Google additionally addressed the problem, acknowledging that this bug is on Google’s finish as properly. In keeping with an announcement from the tech large: “Based mostly on our present investigation, this reported bug in Android affecting WhatsApp customers produces incorrect privateness indicators and notifications within the Privateness Dashboard. We’re working to develop a repair for customers.”

This text has been corrected to mirror the unique discoverer of the WhatsApp bug, which was Twitter consumer PandyaMayur.