A Kerala Student Is Awarded For Identifying And Suggesting A Fix For A WhatsApp Bug

Facebook-owned WhatsApp rarely has bugs in its system. However, recently, a 19-year-old student in Kerala has found and resolved one. After two months, WhatsApp decided to honor and award the student for reporting the bug and also suggesting a solution to fix it.

The student’s name is KS Ananthakrishna, and he noticed the error in WhatsApp’s program two months ago. Since the bug was not public, hackers had exploited this defect to remove files without users knowing about the act.

Ananthakrishna lives in Alappuzha, after notifying Facebook about the bug has put forward a possible solution, which later turns out to be useful in fixing the error. The two-month period was for observing, and after that, the student was awarded for his assistance in fixing the bug.

What he gets is a cash reward of Rs. 34,000, a place in Facebook’s Hall of Fame, and his name will appear on the list of people who have provided the company with important information.

After graduating from Alappuzha's Mount Zion College of Engineering, Ananthakrishna has been working on ethical hacking. He is also working closely with Kerala Police Cyberdome.

This is not the first time Facebook saw a bug in its system that can lead to users’ data being stolen. Recently, experts pointed out that a bug in Messenger allowed hackers to see the people certain users have chatted with along with other personal data. This error was fixed shortly after that by Facebook.

Last year, another bug was discovered which let users’ data being extracted by websites using CSFL (short for cross-site frame leakage).

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is quite vocal about his plan to make Facebook and other platforms it owns a safer place for users. However, recent reports seem to prove that his effort might not be enough to deliver the promise.