Thursday , June 5 2025
Image Credits: Niharika Kulkarni/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images

Zero-days for hacking WhatsApp are now worth millions

Thanks to improvements in security mechanisms and mitigations, hacking cell phones — both running iOS and Android — has become an expensive endeavor. That’s why hacking techniques for apps like WhatsApp are now worth millions of dollars, TechCrunch has learned.

Last week, a Russian company that buys zero-days — flaws in software that are unknown to the developer of the affected product — offered $20 million for chains of bugs that would allow their customers, which the company said are “Russian private and government organizations only,” to remotely compromise phones running iOS and Android. That price is in part likely caused by the fact that there aren’t many researchers willing to work with Russia while the invasion of Ukraine continues, and that Russian government customers are likely willing to pay a premium under the current circumstances.

CVSS 9.6: IBM QRadar & Cloud Pak Security Flaws Exposed

IBM has issued a security advisory for vulnerabilities in its QRadar Suite Software and Cloud Pak for Security platforms. These...
Read More
CVSS 9.6: IBM QRadar & Cloud Pak Security Flaws Exposed

ALERT
Thousands of IP addresses compromised nationwide: CIRT warn

As Bangladesh prepares for the extended Eid-ul-Adha holidays, the BGD e-GOV Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT) has issued an urgent...
Read More
ALERT  Thousands of IP addresses compromised nationwide: CIRT warn

New Android Malware ‘Crocodilus’ Targets Banks in 8 Countries

In March 2025, the Threatfabric mobile Threat Intelligence team identified Crocodilus, a new Android banking Trojan designed for device takeover....
Read More
New Android Malware ‘Crocodilus’ Targets Banks in 8 Countries

Qualcomm Patches 3 Zero-Days Used in Targeted Android Attacks

Qualcomm has issued security patches for three zero-day vulnerabilities in the Adreno GPU driver, affecting many chipsets that are being...
Read More
Qualcomm Patches 3 Zero-Days Used in Targeted Android Attacks

Critical RCE Flaw Patched in Roundcube Webmail

Roundcube Webmail has fixed a critical security flaw that could enable remote code execution after authentication. Disclosed by security researcher...
Read More
Critical RCE Flaw Patched in Roundcube Webmail

Hacker claim Leak of Deloitte Source Code & GitHub Credentials

A hacker known as "303" claim to breach the company's systems and leaked sensitive internal data on a dark web...
Read More
Hacker claim Leak of Deloitte Source Code & GitHub Credentials

CISA Issued Guidance for SIEM and SOAR Implementation

CISA and ACSC issued new guidance this week on how to procure, implement, and maintain SIEM and SOAR platforms. SIEM...
Read More
CISA Issued Guidance for SIEM and SOAR Implementation

Linux flaws enable password hash theft via core dumps in Ubuntu, RHEL, Fedora

The Qualys Threat Research Unit (TRU) found two local information-disclosure vulnerabilities in Apport and systemd-coredump. Both issues are race-condition vulnerabilities....
Read More
Linux flaws enable password hash theft via core dumps in Ubuntu, RHEL, Fedora

Australia enacts mandatory ransomware payment reporting

New ransomware payment reporting rules take effect in Australia yesterday (May 30) for all organisations with an annual turnover of...
Read More
Australia enacts mandatory ransomware payment reporting

Why Govt Demands Foreign CCTV Firms to Submit Source Code?

Global makers of surveillance gear have clashed with Indian regulators in recent weeks over contentious new security rules that require...
Read More
Why Govt Demands Foreign CCTV Firms to Submit Source Code?

But even in the markets outside of Russia, including just for bugs in specific apps, prices have gone up.

Leaked documents seen by TechCrunch show that, as of 2021, a zero-day allowing its user to compromise a target’s WhatsApp on Android and read the content of messages can cost between $1.7 and $8 million.

“They’ve shot up,” said a security researcher who has knowledge of the market, and asked to remain anonymous as they weren’t authorized to speak to the press.

WhatsApp has been a popular target for government hackers, the kind of groups that are more likely to use zero-days. In 2019, researchers caught customers of the controversial spyware maker NSO Group using a zero-day to target WhatsApp users. Soon after, WhatsApp sued the Israeli surveillance tech vendor, accusing it of abusing its platform to facilitate its customers using the zero-day against more than a thousand WhatsApp users.

In 2021, according to one of the leaked documents, a company was selling a “zero click RCE” in WhatsApp for around $1.7 million. RCE is cybersecurity lingo for remote code execution, a type of flaw that allows malicious hackers to remotely run code on the target’s device. Or in this case, inside WhatsApp, allowing them to monitor, read and exfiltrate messages. “Zero click” refers to the fact that the exploit requires no interaction from the target, making it stealthier and harder to detect.

The document said the exploit worked for Android versions 9 to 11, which was released in 2020, and that it took advantage of a flaw in the “image rendering library.” In 2020 and 2021, WhatsApp fixed three vulnerabilities — CVE-2020-1890, CVE-2020-1910 and CVE-2021-24041 — that all involved how the app processes images. It’s unclear if these patches fixed the flaws underlying the exploits that were on sale in 2021.

WhatsApp spokesperson Zade Alsawah said the company declined to comment.

The value of targeting WhatsApp specifically is that, sometimes, government hackers — think those working for intelligence or law enforcement agencies — may only be interested in a target’s chats on WhatsApp, so they don’t need to compromise the whole phone. But an exploit only in WhatsApp can also be part of a chain to further compromise the target’s device.

“The exploit buyers are interested in the exploits for what they enable — spying on their targets,” said a security researcher with knowledge of the market, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive issues. “If the exploit they buy does not give them all of what they want they need to buy multiple pieces and combine them.”

Check Also

SIEM and SOAR

CISA Issued Guidance for SIEM and SOAR Implementation

CISA and ACSC issued new guidance this week on how to procure, implement, and maintain …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *