Facebook's WhatsApp messenger service said on Wednesday it has fixed a bug on its platform that allowed hackers to take over users' applications when they answered an incoming video call.

The announcement follows reports from ZDnet and The Register that the vulnerability, which affected WhatsApp applications on Apple and Android smartphones, was discovered in late August and was fixed by Facebook in early October.

WhatsApp said that they issued a fix to the latest version of the app.

WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $19 billion.