Telegram founder Pavel Durov has taken to his own Telegram channel to downplay the report of the Kaspersky Lab on vulnerability in the messaging app, which, it said, had been exploited to turn desktop computers into unwitting crypto-miners.
"Reports from antivirus companies must be taken with a grain of salt, as they tend to exaggerate the severity of their findings to get publicity in mass media," Durov said.
He went on to claim that what Kaspersky had uncovered was not a "real vulnerability on Telegram Desktop," and that cybercriminals could not access users' computers without them first opening a malicious file.
"So don't worry," he said. "Unless you opened a malicious [sic] file, you have always been safe."