Is GB WhatsApp download available through gbdownload.io? Since its registration in March 2021, this domain name has reliably featured illegal APK file downloads. SimilarWeb’s tracking statistics indicate that its average monthly visits reached 2.4 million in 2023, of which 58% originated in India, Indonesia, and Pakistan. The security firm Kaspersky Lab has discovered that the installation package on this website is discovered to have a 23.7% chance of malicious code injection risk. During download, it will force the user to turn on 74 Android permissions, far more than the 29 permission requests of the official WhatsApp. In 2022, the Brazilian National Telecommunications Agency’s “Clean Network Campaign” had blocked this domain name. But the operator restored the service within 17 hours by replacing 34 CDN nodes at the expense of a 68% reduction in the rate of regulatory success.
Technical analysis suggests that the version number of GB WhatsApp download available from gbdownload.io is v17.55 and the APK file size of its extension reach 78.4MB, an increase of 71.9% from the original 45.6MB of WhatsApp. The reverse engineering report indicates that this version has modified 23 fundamental communication class files and deleted 89% of the Google Play service verification module’s code blocks. Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point discovered that the installation package sets the Wi-Fi direct connection feature as default, which causes the device to generate 12.7MB of unencrypted data transmission per hour and triples the network attack surface. According to the digital signature verification record, the certificate used by this APK is valid for just 7 days only, forcing the users to download the new installation package every two weeks.
From a legal compliance perspective, the Estonian hosting company where the gbdownload.io server is located received 136 DMCA notices of infringement from Meta during Q2 2023. But in accordance with the cross-border exemption clause under Article 18 of the local Digital Services Act, only 12% of the suspected infringing content was actually taken down. ENISA, the European Union’s cybersecurity agency, dark web monitoring statistics report that the site makes money through 14 cryptocurrency outlets, resulting in the site making approximately 3,800 euros in commission income for every 100,000 GB WhatsApp downloads completed. The Philippines’ National Privacy Commission’s January 2024 enforcement action concluded that 59% of devices that used this outlet to purchase apps had experienced contacts data leakage incidents.
According to user behavior analysis, third-party app store APKPure’s data shows that among users that visit gbdownload.io to download GB WhatsApp, 43% will be banned from their accounts within 90 days, which is 19 percentage points above other sources. A case that was heard by the High Court of Mumbai, India, in 2023 highlighted how a firm’s trade secrets were leaked since its employees used this version. Data tracing for six months showed that 77% of the leaked documents were transmitted via a vulnerability in the SS7 protocol embedded in the hacked client. Although the site has a “99% normal operation guarantee”, user complaint logs reveal that there is a 29% probability of random interruption in its download link, with a mean download time of 6 minutes and 48 seconds, which is way above the 38-second benchmark value of the Google Play Store.