Facebook has honoured a 19-year-old student from Kerala for spotting a memory corruption bug on its instant messaging platform WhatsApp, the media reported.
K.S. Ananthakrishna, a B.Tech student at Pathanamthitta Mount Zion College of Engineering College, detected the bug that enabled other people to completely remove files on WhatsApp without knowledge of the user, according to a report in Kerala-based Mathrubhumi on Monday.
A resident of Alappuzha, Ananthakrishna had found the bug two months ago and informed Facebook officials.
Facebook examined the solution provided by the young student and after two months of observation, then social networking giant decided to honour him for successfully identifying the error and also suggesting a fix to rectify the error.
Besides presenting him with a cash award of $500 (approximately Rs 34,000), Facebook also promised a spot for Ananthakrishna in the prestigious Hall of Fame, according to the report. Ananthakrishnan’s name is mentioned at the 80th spot in Facebook’s Thanks List this year.
In addition to his research on ethical hacking, Ananthakrishna is also engaged in working for Kerala Police Cyberdome, a research and development centre of Kerala Police. According to a Mathrubhumi report, Ananthakrishnan is the son of Krishnakumar of Alappuzha Moncompu Krishnavihar and Mathrubhumi agent Sreeja.
WhatsApp recently also detected a code developed by Israeli cyber intelligence company, NSO on its platform that allowed hackers to install spyware on a user’s smartphone through a WhatsApp call. This meant that a WhatsApp call could make your entire data vulnerable to NSO, even if you didn’t answer the call.