WhatsApp has millions of users around the world. Since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, the number of active users on the platform has grown by many folds as this is one of the easiest ways to connect with friends and family members while maintaining social distancing. Scammers and hackers have used this to their advantage to scam users and steal their personal data.
When trying to set up WhatsApp on a smartphone, the app sends an OTP for verification to the user’s mobile. The user then needs to enter this OTP or one-time password on WhatsApp in order to verify themselves. Hackers or scammers take advantage of this and tend to hack into people’s WhatsApp accounts. A hacker would freshly install WhatsApp on his phone and enter your number. He will call or message you to grab the OTP from you.
If this happens to you ensure to never share the OTP with anyone as this can provide access to your WhatsApp account. If you provide the OTP to the hacker, you could be locked out of your own WhatsApp account and the hacker could get full control of your chats and personal information. This is an old trick that scammers have used to steal sensitive data. If you are targeted, scammers could at first send you a WhatsApp message from an unknown number claiming that they have sent a text message containing OTP by mistake and request you to forward it to them.
To keep away from such scams ensure to first enable Two-step authentication.
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