Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp is one of the most widely used apps in the world with over two billion active users worldwide. But with the advancement in technology, come scams and plethora of security and privacy issues.
However, WhatsApp has caught the eye of the miscreants. The latest scam doing the rounds is one which involves hacking your WhatsApp account. A user will pretend to be a friend of yours and will send you personalized messages to access your account.
Describing some kind of emergency, the fraudster will try to grab your immediate attention.
After providing assurance of being your friend, the scamster will ask for an OTP. Notably, the scammers will send multiple messages to persuade you to forward the OTP.
After sharing the OTP with the fraudster, you will be locked out of your account. As a result, the scamster will have full access to your contacts, messages, as well as groups.
For the unversed, an OTP is a string of numeric/alphanumeric characters generated automatically authenticating the user for a single transaction or login session.
In order to protect yourself from this fraud, follow the two-step verification procedure as it adds more security to your account.