"Freedom Chat, released in June, bills itself as a secure messaging app, and claims on its website that users' phone numbers stay private. But security researcher Eric Daigle told TechCrunch that users' phone numbers and PIN codes, used for locking the app, could be easily obtained by exploiting vulnerabilities. Daigle found the vulnerabilities last week and shared their details with TechCrunch, as Freedom Chat does not provide a public way to report security flaws, like a vulnerability disclosure program."
"Haas confirmed to TechCrunch that the app has now reset user PINs and released a new version. Haas added that the company is removing instances where users' phone numbers were occasionally visible, and has notched up rate-limiting on its servers to prevent mass-guess attempts. Daigle, who published his findings in a blog post, told TechCrunch it was possible to enumerate the phone numbers of close to 2,000 users who had signed up to use Freedom Chat since it launched."
Freedom Chat contained vulnerabilities that allowed attackers to enumerate registered phone numbers and to obtain users' app-lock PIN codes. The app offered no public vulnerability disclosure program. The founder reset user PINs, released a new version, removed instances of occasionally visible phone numbers, and implemented rate limiting to prevent mass-guess attempts. A researcher was able to enumerate close to 2,000 registered phone numbers by flooding servers with millions of guesses. The phone-number enumeration technique matched prior research used against WhatsApp. Network traffic inspection revealed that the app returned other users' PIN codes in responses within public channels.
Read at TechCrunch
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