Meta announced its addition on Tuesday strict account settings To protect certain users on WhatsApp from advanced cyber attacks because of who they are and what they do.
This feature, similar to Lockdown Mode in Apple iOS and Advanced Protection in Android, aims to protect individuals such as journalists or public-facing individuals from sophisticated spyware by trading some functionality for increased security.
Once this security mode is enabled, some account settings will be locked to the most restrictive options, as well as blocking attachments and media from people who are not in contact with the user.
“This lockdown-style feature further increases your security on WhatsApp by locking your account to the most restrictive settings, such as automatically blocking attachments and media from unknown senders, silencing calls from people you don’t know, and restricting other settings that might limit how the app works,” Meta said.
The feature can be enabled by navigating to Settings > Privacy > Advanced. Meta said the feature is being rolled out gradually in the coming weeks.
In the same vein, the social media giant said it is adopting the use of Rust programming language in its media sharing functionality to help keep users’ photos, videos and messages safe from spyware attacks. It described the development as “the largest rollout globally of any library written in Rust”.
The company also said that while the use of Rust has made it possible to develop a secure, high-performance, cross-platform library (“WAMedia”) for sharing media in WhatsApp across all devices, the company is investing in a three-pronged approach to dealing with memory safety issues –
- Design the product to minimize unnecessary attack surface exposure
- Invest in security assurance for remaining C and C++ code
- By default, choose memory-safe languages for new code.
“WhatsApp has added protections like CFI, hardened memory allocator, secure buffer handling API, and more,” the company said. “This is an important step towards adding additional protection behind the scenes for users and is part of our ongoing defense in depth approach.”
