Zonel Sougaijam, a 22-year-old civil engineer, was recently
honoured by Facebook for discovering a WhatsApp bug that violated the privacy
of a user.
Mr. Sougaijam told PTI, in the wake of discovering the bug,
that he had reported the issue to the Bug Bounty Program of the Facebook, which
manages infringement of privacy matters, in March.
“During a voice call through WhatsApp, the bug used to allow
the caller to upgrade it to a video call without the authorisation and
knowledge of the receiver. The caller was then able to see what the other
person was doing, violating the privacy of the receiver,” he said.
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| Zonel Sougaijam, the 22-year-old civil engineer |
His report was hence acknowledged by the Facebook Security
Team the immediate next day and its technical department fixed the bug under
15-20 days. The social media giant then proceeded to award him with a bounty of
$5000 at the same time incorporating him in the 'Facebook Hall of Fame 2019',
for detecting the WhatsApp bug.
Sougaijam's name is right now at the 16th position in a
rundown of 94 people, in the 'Facebook Hall of Fame' for the current year.
Facebook had obtained Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in
2014. The organization has been entangled in data privacy concerns and
political ramifications of its calculations throughout the most recent couple
of years.
