During Christmas, fraud attempts through WhatsApp tend to increase. Cybercriminals try to take advantage of a time of year when more messages are received and users often lower their guard to try to deceive them with all kinds of tricks.
At Christmas, scam attempts through WhatsApp become popular
In recent days we have seen how the so-called “Hello Winner” became popular, by which the user is requested to enter a link or series of links that are sent through a text message, but another that deals with to get the verification message of your WhatsApp account to get it, so be very careful.
Extreme caution should be exercised if a message such as the following is received: «Hello, sorry, I sent you a 6-digit code by SMS by mistake, Can you transfer it to me, please? It is urgent”. It may be accompanied by different emojis and will be sent by a known contact.
This is what makes many users itch, the fact that the message comes from an account of a friend or family member. However, it must be taken into account that the cybercriminal has already taken control of your account and is now sending the message to your contacts.
In addition, the SMS with the verification code does indeed reach us. What happens is that, as has taken control of our friend’s accountYou know our phone number. Thus, it requests the code and it reaches us on our mobile. If we provide it to you, we will also be giving you control over our WhatsApp account.
That is to say, we must distrust any message that reaches us in which we are asked for a verification code that we have not previously asked (to recover a password in an online service, for example) if we do not want to see how another person takes control of our WhatsApp account, for illegal purposes. For example, you can infect the device with a malicious program, send messages with fraudulent links to other contacts …
Once they have taken over our account, recovering it is not easy. It should be unsubscribed from WhatsApp (something that only the messaging app can do, since we have lost control over it) and notify the authorities so that they are aware and can check the communications made and reduce the number as much as possible. of affected people.
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