What is CVE-2017-8769?

CVE-2017-8769 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Whatsapp, classified under Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data. CVSS score: 4.6/10. Published 2017-05-18.

How severe is CVE-2017-8769?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.6 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Whatsapp

CVE-2017-8769

Facebook WhatsApp Messenger before 2.16.323 for Android uses the SD card for cleartext storage of files (Audio, Documents, Images, Video, and Voice Notes) associated with a chat, even after that chat is deleted. There may be users who expect file deletion to occur upon chat deletion, or who expect encryption (consistent with the application's use of an encrypted database to store chat text). NOTE: the vendor reportedly indicates that they do not "consider these to be security issues" because a user may legitimately want to preserve any file for use "in other apps like the Google Photos gallery" regardless of whether its associated chat is deleted

EPSS: 0.002 (10.9th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 4.6 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.

Affected products

Whatsapp
N/a — versions n/a

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-311 — Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data

References

cve@mitre.org (Exploit, Third Party Advisory, x_refsource_MISC, Mitigation)
cve@mitre.org (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry, x_refsource_BID)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2017-8769?: CVE-2017-8769 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Whatsapp, classified under Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data. CVSS score: 4.6/10. Published 2017-05-18.
How severe is CVE-2017-8769?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.6 out of 10.