WhatsApp owner Meta has released a fix for a problematic privacy bug in its iPhone app.
The issue allowed users to access photos and videos that were set to disappear after a single viewing using the app’s ‘View once’ feature.
The bug, which only affected iPhone users, made it possible to bypass privacy protection by going to Settings > Storage > Data > Manage Storage and sorting media by ‘Recent’. This allowed content that was intended to be temporary to be displayed again.
Security researcher Ramshath was the first to document the vulnerability in a Medium post, prompting WhatsApp to acknowledge the issue and develop a fix. There are no indications that the bug can be replicated on WhatsApp’s app for Android phones.
This is not the first time ‘View once’ has had security flaws – a similar bug was discovered and fixed in WhatsApp Web in December, MacRumors reports.
The latest update also includes new features, such as the ability to make calls without saving phone numbers and improved group calling features.
In other words, it’s time for you to update to the latest version.
This article originally appeared on our sister publication Macworld Sweden and was translated and adapted from Swedish.
