WhatsApp users are asked to be careful of the WAMR application. The app claims to be able to restore deleted WhatsApp chats, but security researchers have found this app to be potentially dangerous.
Currently, there are indeed several unofficial applications that claim to be able to restore WhatsApp chats that were deleted by the sender. One of them is WAMR, which in its description claims to be able to restore deleted messages and media.
WAMR is currently available on the Google Play Store and has been downloaded more than 50 million times. This application can be run on phones running Android 5 or later and have at least 16MB of storage.
WAMR developer, drilens, said this application cannot access WhatsApp chats that are sent directly because they are protected by encryption. Instead, they use notification history to read messages and make backups.
So if WAMR detects a deleted WhatsApp message before it is read by the user, this application will provide a notification.
WAMR can also save the media that is sent, and restore it if it has been deleted by the sender of the message. The types of media that can be returned are photos, videos, GIFs, audio, documents, stickers, and voice notes.
But according to a report from the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS), WAMR is a risky application to use because it asks for access permissions for many settings. Currently the application requires access to the gallery, network, and notifications, which increases the risk of data leakage, as quoted from BGR, Wednesday (2/2/2022).
Although the IICS report says currently WAMR is not a malicious app, it does warn users that granting access permissions to notifications has the potential to leak sensitive data.
In addition, IICS explains that by granting broad access permissions to WAMR users also have the potential to expose data operated by other applications, data stored in device memory, search history on the internet, and contact lists on mobile phones.