Beware! Viral Sarahah App Secretly Steals Your Entire Contact List


Are you also one of those 18 Million users using SARAHAH?

You should beware of this app because the anonymous feedback application may not be as private as it really sounds.

Sarahah is a newly launched app that has become one of the hottest iPhone and Android apps in the past couple of weeks, allowing its users to sign up to receive anonymised, candid messages from other Sarahah users.

However, it turns out that the app silently uploads users' phone contacts to the company's servers for no good reason, spotted by security analyst Zachary Julian.

Sarahah developer says the app’s doing so for a future feature

The app’s creator, Zain Al-Abidin Tawfiq, has said that the contact lists are being uploaded “for a planned ‘find your friends’ feature,” which has been “delayed due to a technical issue.” He claims that the database doesn’t “host contacts” at the moment. Even if that’s the case, Sarahah users might not be happy with this feature considering it could take the entire fun of anonymity out of the way with users being able to guess based on who uses the app in their contact list.

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