The Law “On Communication” and Vulnerability in Messengers
An interesting situation occurred with me.
I bought a sim card Yota, logged in with this number in WhatsApp and immediately found myself in three unfamiliar groups. The previous correspondence was not visible, because at first I thought that spam and stupidly withdrew from all three.
Some time later, I was written by a man from an unknown number, saying hello, why he left. During the conversation with him, it turned out that this was his friend's number and he had been using it for about 4 years.
It seemed to me that it was very strange and I turned to Yota with explanations, and that was what their tech support answered:
In Watsap, the correspondence is saved on Google Drive, so if an attacker does not have access to your Google account, then the correspondence history, of course, he will not see contacts either, but theoretically anyone can go to your group chats.
Unfortunately, at the time when this situation occurred, I was busy and just changed the number so that strangers wouldn't bother and only then realized what would be good to check before changing the number how things are with Telegram and Viber. With these messengers, all correspondence is stored on the server and the vulnerability may be even more critical, and the attacker, in addition to accessing chat rooms, can also receive a correspondence history.
I want to hear the comment of the expert community, whether this is normal and how things are in other countries.
I bought a sim card Yota, logged in with this number in WhatsApp and immediately found myself in three unfamiliar groups. The previous correspondence was not visible, because at first I thought that spam and stupidly withdrew from all three.
Some time later, I was written by a man from an unknown number, saying hello, why he left. During the conversation with him, it turned out that this was his friend's number and he had been using it for about 4 years.
It seemed to me that it was very strange and I turned to Yota with explanations, and that was what their tech support answered:
The numbers are distributed to subscribers in accordance with the Law "On Communication" for the period of using communication services. That is, someone else could use the number, the numbering resource is limited, therefore, 60 days after the contract is terminated, the number becomes available again for assignment to customers. Unfortunately, it is not known where this number could be left as a contact and we do not have the tools and rights to manage this. To solve this situation, you can add unwanted numbers to the black list, or change the number through the mobile application.It turns out theoretically if the operator terminated the service contract for your number, after 60 days anyone can get access to the data of your instant messengers, if they are tied to the number?
In Watsap, the correspondence is saved on Google Drive, so if an attacker does not have access to your Google account, then the correspondence history, of course, he will not see contacts either, but theoretically anyone can go to your group chats.
Unfortunately, at the time when this situation occurred, I was busy and just changed the number so that strangers wouldn't bother and only then realized what would be good to check before changing the number how things are with Telegram and Viber. With these messengers, all correspondence is stored on the server and the vulnerability may be even more critical, and the attacker, in addition to accessing chat rooms, can also receive a correspondence history.
I want to hear the comment of the expert community, whether this is normal and how things are in other countries.