According to Statista’s data in 2023, nearly 15% of Android users globally (approximately 450 million users) have experienced data leaks when they installed unofficial APK files. By comparison, GB WhatsApp as a third-party modified app has been downloaded more than 500 million times, while its security vulnerabilities are far more severe than official channels. Just consider the experiments conducted by AV-TEST Laboratory in 2022 as an example. 30% of GB WhatsApp installation packages were discovered to be having malicious code injected into them, which could hijack device permissions (such as the camera being invoked up to once a minute) or steal chat records from users (averaging 2.3GB leakages per month). If the user still insists on the installation, it is recommended to prefer APK file selection with digital signature check (the matching rate of the hash value must be 100%), and switch off the “Allow Unknown Sources” feature to reduce the probability of malware infection by 75%.
While the installation process, one needs to be cautious regarding the extent of storage permission grant. GB WhatsApp has been found to automatically add full disk access to device storage (98% of file directories) by default, while the official WhatsApp is only consuming 35% of the base path permissions. In the event of users mistakenly laboring to provide duplicate permissions, It has the potential to result in private images (JPEG/PNG files occupying 82%) or files (PDF/DOCX occupying 67%) being illegally uploaded onto third-party servers. According to a report by the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, among the privacy leakage incidents caused by vulnerabilities in third-party social applications in 2021, cases related to GB WhatsApp accounted for 19%, involving users’ geographical locations (with a latitude and longitude accuracy of ±3 meters), call records (an average of 12 per day), and contact lists (an average of 137 people/device).
From the compliance aspect, Meta also shuts down between 12,000 and 72,000 accounts daily for unauthorized clients such as GB WhatsApp. Additionally, once the users are discovered using unofficial apps, they will also face the risk of service termination ranging from 72 hours to permanent. For instance, in 2023, the European Court of Justice ruled that third-party altered apps were violating the GDPR cross-border data transfer provisions, and over 2 million users were forced to move to the original client. To reduce the risk of account suspension, turn off the auto-update option during GB WhatsApp installation (there is a 89% probability that system update will trigger the detection mechanism) and use a virtual private network (VPN) to encrypt traffic for communication (use of the AES-256 protocol can reduce the risk of interception of data by 62%).
For the hardware compatibility front, GB WhatsApp’s crash incidence on Android 11 and onwards operating systems stands at 40% higher compared to the rate of the original app, with the low-end devices (RAM≤3GB) having an 8.3-second median delay in messages. Users need to ensure that the device retains at least 500MB of storage space (the APK package size is usually 78MB, and additional data packets are approximately 420MB), and clear cache periodically (it is recommended to clear 1.2GB of duplicate files on a weekly basis). If dual-opening the application is necessary, using the system-level sandbox feature (e.g., Samsung Secure Folder) rather than depending on GB WhatsApp’s built-in dual-opening module (failure rate for account synchronization: around 27%) is suggested.
Lastly, according to real-time scan data from Google Play Protect, variant versions of GB WhatsApp with high-risk vulnerabilities discovered in Q1 2024 grew by 15% quarter-on-quarter. Among them, 61% of them were posing as “Pro” or “Premium” versions to induce downloads (with an induced click cost averaging $0.03 per incident). Users must perform a complete disk virus scan upon installation (for example, Malwarebytes can identify 93% of malicious behavior patterns), and enable end-to-end Backup tools (for example, set Local Backup frequency to daily) so that chat records will not be lost (users without backup data recovery success rate is as low as 11%).