Over the last few years, the instant messaging app WhatsApp has become an almost inseparable companion for most people. It allows us to stay in constant contact with friends, family or coworkers from our mobile phones.
Furthermore, this is a platform that has been extended over time to desktop computers. This allows us to maintain synchronized conversations on both mobile and computer using our WhatsApp account. Hundreds of millions of users use this messaging application on a daily basis, so attackers want to take advantage of this enormous market penetration for their unethical objectives.
So much so that we are increasingly encountering a greater number of scam attempts and attacks through this channel. Now we are going to talk about a new campaign that has been detected recently and that we must be on the lookout for in order not to fall for the scam. In addition, this is a malicious campaign designed in such a way that we can fall into the trap without even realizing it.
How this WhatsApp scam works
To give us a better idea of ​​how it works, the campaign initially focuses on impersonating the technical service of the application itself. Obviously, all of this with the clear objective of making us trust it.
First of all, we will tell you that this is a notice that we have received from INCIBE or the National Institute of Cybersecurity. They inform us that some users have encountered messages or even calls through WhatsApp from people supposedly belonging to the technical service of the application. Here they inform us that other users have accessed our account fraudulently and they want to make sure that we are the legitimate owners.
That’s why we are asked for a series of data belonging to the account itself, including the activation of the two-factor protection method. Once we have provided all this account data to the supposed Meta employee, at the end of the communication the affected users see that their WhatsApp account is no longer available. Basically, this means that we have suffered a full-blown hack.
Avoid this type of fraud and online scams
In order to avoid all of this, the first thing we must take into consideration is that neither WhatsApp nor any other online platform, including our bank, will ever ask us for authentication data. This means that we should never provide access data to our platforms if they ask us for it via SMS, messaging or by phone.
Typically, we only have to enter part of our personal password if necessary, all through the official website of the platform or application itself. Requests for access credentials that we receive through other channels are most likely a scam or an attempt at one. When this happens, the best thing we can do is notify the security forces of the attempt we are being victimized by.
