WhatsApp, a popular instant messaging platform, isn’t just popular among users across the world. It’s also popular among scammers who love leveraging the platform to lure people into clicking on malicious links and other shady content. Speaking of which, a warning has been issued for WhatsApp users surrounding a scam that makes it hard to spot a malicious message given that it appears to come from a friend in your contact list.
For those wondering how exactly this WhatsApp security scam works, users get a text on their smartphone, followed by a message on WhatsApp from a friend in their contact list. This friend then asks the user to share the code with them that they have received on their smartphone. Once the user shares the code with the friend, scammers can easily hack their WhatsApp, leaving them logged out of their own WhatsApp account.
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This is not a new trick in the hacking world and scammers have been following the same form of cyberattack among other platforms as well. One of the ways to stay safe is to call up your friend who sends you a text like this on WhatsApp and clarify with them as to why they want the code. However, the best thing to do is to never share your WhatsApp verification code with anyone, especially during times when you didn’t request one. There’s a slew of other safety tips that you can follow to keep your WhatsApp account safe. Here are the top five WhatsApp security tips to secure your WhatsApp account.
Speaking of scams and WhatsApp, it was reported in February that hackers made a fake WhatsApp version to trick iPhone users and access their personal sensitive data. The fake WhatsApp version was found to be linked to an Italian surveillance firm “Cy4Gate” and was discovered by a cybersecurity research lab at the University of Toronto, Citizen Lab. The cyberattack duped users into installing configuration files or “Mobile Device Management (MDM)”, that can easily download malware in the targeted device.
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