To all those who are using Whatsapp messaging app on Android and iOS loaded smartphones, here’s a news piece that might be of your interest. The Facebook-owned the phone and video sharing platform has officially declared that it is going to withdraw all support from older versions of Android and iPhone operating systems from February 1st,2020.
A source from WhatsApp says that those devices running on iOS 8 and Android 2.3.7 versions (Google Android Gingerbread version) will no longer receive any security updates from the Facebook-owned subsidiary after the first week of Feb this year. Therefore, those mobiles still running on the said OSes will be no longer be able to create accounts or re-verify existing accounts. And the app will no longer work on those devices after the deadline.
According to a report released by UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, any security vulnerability on mobile version applications might get exploited by hackers. So, those devices which do not receive any security updates will be extremely vulnerable to cyber crooks and state-funded hackers/groups.
And the only way to counter this situation smartly will be to upgrade your hardware of the devices which is only possible by going for a new smartphone loaded with an Android 9 or 10 operating system. For Apple device users, they can only go for a device that has an iOS13 upgrade in it which is compatible with the hardware loaded on iPhone 6S and above.
Note 1- Apple iOS 8 operating system was released in 2014 and now the latest version happens to be iOS 13 with the new version to be available as a beta by Sept’20.
Note 2- WhatsApp which officially declared that it has over 1.5 Billion active users in 2017 has already stopped its support for smartphones loaded with Microsoft Windows Mobile OS version at the end of 2019.
