WhatsApp Down Issue: Fake Varun Pulyani Message Makes a Come Back, But Here’s the Truth

WhatsApp servers going down day before yesterday has led to the re-circulation of the fake Varun Pulyani message

WhatsApp, the world’s most popular free messaging platform owned by Facebook, was down the day before yesterday along with Instagram and Facebook for a couple of hours. While all the platforms are now up and running, the fake “Varun Pulyani from WhatsApp” message is again doing the rounds. The message claims that servers of the free messaging platform are “congested” and the forward will have to be sent to twenty people in order for them to continue using the services.

““Do not ignore please read it carefully” Hello, I am VARUN PULYANI director of WhatsApp, this message is to inform all our users that we have sold WhatsApp to Mark Zuckerberg for 19 billion dollars. WhatsApp is now controlled by Mark Zuckerberg. If you have at least 20 contacts, send this text message and your WhatsApp logo will change to a new icon with the “f” of Facebook in 24 hours. Forward this message to more than 10 people to activate your new WhatsApp with Facebook services or else your account will be removed from the new servers,” says the fake message as there is no Varun Pulyani in the company.

The message also claims that those who fail to forward it will be forced to pay to continue using the free messaging platform. “Servers of the platform have recently been very congested, that is why we are asking for your help. We solve this problem. We require our active users to forward this message to each of the people in their contact list to confirm our active users using WhatsApp, if you don’t send this message to all of your contacts, WhatsApp will start charging you, (SIC),” it adds.

Why WhatsApp was Actually Down

While the Varun Pulyani message is fake, there was actually a problem with the servers. “Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other popular internet services were not available for few last hours. While it might look like a colossal failure in all those services and apps, the reason is probably a DNS service they all use to route their pages and service to our devices. So, what is DNS?! Simply, it is the internet protocol to convert the words we use like Facebook.com to language computers know - numbers or internet addresses. They do the conversion and route us to the services and applications we asked to use. When this service falls, the services look like they are down, but actually just now accessible,” said Lotem Finkelstenn, head of threat intelligence at Check Point Software Technologies.