News18 published a guide to spotting a hijacked WhatsApp account, and a takeover can put your friends, family and customers at financial risk.
News18 has published a guide that helps WhatsApp users work out whether someone else has taken over their account. It lists nine warning signs, covers common WhatsApp scams and explains how to recover a hijacked account. The main danger is simple. A hijacker can message your contacts while pretending to be you.
Most people trust a message from a friend or relative. That trust is what makes a taken-over account useful to a scammer. If your contacts think they are talking to you, they may believe whatever the message says. A hijacked account can cost your friends, family or customers money, so spotting it early protects them as well as you.
Anyone who uses WhatsApp could be targeted. Small business owners who chat with customers on the app have even more reason to pay attention, because their customers are used to getting messages from that number.
The full text of the News18 guide was not available to Dashline, so the nine warning signs are not listed here. There are also no figures on how many accounts have been hijacked. The guide is advice for users. It is not a report of a new attack.
The alert box above lists the steps to take, including checking which devices are linked to your account and turning on extra protection. One rule is worth repeating: never share the six-digit code WhatsApp sends you, even with a friend who asks. If a friend asks for it, their account may be the one that has been taken over.
Never share your six-digit WhatsApp code with anyone, and check your linked devices now to make sure you recognize every one.
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