Being the most popular app in Europe, it’s no surprise that WhatsApp is also a favorite target for hackers. For an attacker, there is a lot to be gained by gaining access to the primary method of communication we use.
[Los estados de WhatsApp tendrán más importancia que nunca en la pestaña de chats de la app]
Stolen accounts can be used for “phishing” attacks, in which attackers impersonate someone else, or can also be used to obtain private information and our personal data. Perhaps in response to an increase in similar attacks, WhatsApp is currently testing a special measure.
The trick to prevent theft of your WhatsApp account
As usual it was WABetaInfo who had a first look at this new feature, which aims to prevent WhatsApp accounts from being easily moved from one device to another.
This is a popup message that will appear in the app when someone tries to move our WhatsApp account to another smartphone; in this case, it will ask us for authorization to approve the transfer, and if we do not authorize it, it will not be carried out and our account will be safe.
The message includes information about the access attempt, such as the time of the attempt and the name of the device that wants the account; however, it looks like no location information will be included, at least for now. Since this feature is still under development, it wouldn’t be surprising if this post was edited for the final release, either including more information or removing it.
It may still take a while as it seems WhatsApp developers are still working on this feature and there is no indication that it will be released soon. In fact, it’s not even available in the WhatsApp beta yet, so we’ll probably have to wait a bit longer.
WhatsApp already has a system to prevent suspicious logins, but works by SMS
The problem with using SMS for this authentication is that these messages are very vulnerable to possible attacks, and if he really wants it, a hacker could take advantage of it to get the code and log in with our account. In addition, this new function would also facilitate the possibility of using WhatsApp on a second mobile that does not have our telephone number.