A fake and possibly malicious version of Facebook-owned WhatsApp was found lurking on Google Play Store as “Update WhatsApp Messenger” with developer name as ‘WhatsApp Inc*’. When IANS checked it on the Play Store, we found the app has been downloaded up to 5,000 times. There is another version under the same name which has a million downloads. The original WhatsApp has 1 billion downloads.
“DON’T DOWNLOAD THIS APP! IT’S FAKE! WhatsApp Business is not officially available yet for all,” the WABetaInfo social media account tweeted to its 30,000 followers. It added: “Check only official channels to download WhatsApp Business in future.” WhatsApp Business is yet to launch as a standalone service.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp was down for users worldwide for about an hour on Friday, with people complaining of issues with accessing its services. Some users took to Twitter to highlight problems with the messaging app. The Facebook-owned company later released a statement saying issue has been fixed, and apologised for any inconvenience.