New WhatsApp Scam Raises Privacy Scare
As privacy becomes more and more treacherous in virtual space, there is yet another update from the front to make matters worse. WhatsApp has become the target of a scam threatening users’ privacy and their devices with malware.
The new scam tricks users into revealing personal information like passwords and account details. A link comes from what seems to be a friend and when the recipient opens it, they are directed to a website which asks for their private details. Users often find themselves on a discount page asking for log-in ids and passwords.
While this website not only manages to obtain important personal information like passwords, it also infects the device with viruses. Furthermore, the victims are then asked to forward the message to their friends in return for a promotion like a discount coupon with a famous brand and so on and so forth.
What is more disturbing is the fact that owing to its far reach all over the world, this virus makes makes use of different languages.
David Emm, principal security researcher at an internet security and anti-virus software company comments on this and says, “We have noted that this WhatsApp scam has been actively circling for some time. It ‘speaks’ several languages so the attacks can be customised for each market.
WhatsApp has gained immense popularity ever since its inception, becoming the most popular messaging platform in the world. After having secured itself 1 billion customers, WhatsApp recently also increased its upper limit of members in a group from 100 to 256. Because the platform is expanding in such an exponential manner, it is bound to attract scammers. WhatsApp has issued no official comment on how it plans to address the problem.
