Ammon News - There's a critical warning for WhatsApp users, and now is a very good time to check your settings and make sure things are fully up to date. The new alert affects those using older versions of WhatsApp via their Windows PCs, and not updating could put personal data at risk of being stolen. It's been confirmed that the vulnerability found within this popular chat app could allow hackers to execute something called arbitrary code. This nasty attack is hidden within what appear to be harmless attachments.

For those not in the know, if an arbitrary code attack succeeds, it can give cyber crooks unauthorised access or even full control of devices, which is definitely something we all want to avoid.

"A spoofing issue in WhatsApp for Windows prior to version 2.2450.6 displayed attachments according to their MIME type but selected the file opening handler based on the attachment’s filename extension," WhatsApp explained.

"A maliciously crafted mismatch could have caused the recipient to inadvertently execute arbitrary code rather than view the attachment when manually opening the attachment inside WhatsApp."

The glitch has since been fixed, but it's vital that Windows users - who send messages via WhatsApp - now make sure that their software is fully updated to the very latest version. Once the patch has been installed, files and data will then be safe again. The Mirror