new Delhi: Meta-owned WhatsApp on Friday announced that it has added a web browser extension called “code verification” that provides real-time, third-party verification that someone’s code running WhatsApp Web hasn’t been tampered with.
In doing so, WhatsApp is further tightening its security for non-mobile users of WhatsApp and putting even more power in the hands of its users.
“No other end-to-end encrypted messaging app provides this level of security for people’s communications over the web. Code Verify is also being open sourced so that other messaging services can enable people to verify That the code that is being given to them on the web is what everyone is using,” the company said in a statement.
Code Verification is now available as a web browser extension that automatically verifies the authenticity of the WhatsApp Web code being delivered to your browser and verifies that it has not been tampered with or altered. It works in partnership with Cloudflare to provide free, third-party, transparent code verification to WhatsApp Web users on Firefox, Edge and Chrome.
Once users install the Code Validation extension, it will be automatically pinned to the Firefox or Edge browser, and Chrome users will need to pin it for optimal use.
Then when someone uses WhatsApp Web, the code verification extension automatically compares the code that the browser is receiving to WhatsApp Web, creates a hash (which is like a fingerprint of the code) and then WhatsApp Matches with the hash or fingerprint of the web. The code we shared with CloudFlare.
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