07 Apr How to prevent whatsapp scam?
The National Institute of Cybersecurity (INCIBE) warns of one of the latest fraud committed through WhatsApp, a messaging application that exceeds 1,500 million users worldwide. The user receives a message with a link to a video, which describes a ‘solidarity’ system to exchange money.
The victim contributes 33 dollars through platforms such as PayPal, confident that he will recover the investment on the fourth day. In fact, they promise that it will increase to 1,848 euros in just over a week, as long as we involve two more friends.
How to prevent whatsapp scam?
Of course, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out something that smells of singe, but there have been many who have snapped on the promise of easy money. Thus, the Internet Security Office (OSI) has drawn up a series of tips to avoid this and other scams on WhatsApp:
● Do not send confidential or compromising information (even to one of our contacts): you never know what you can do with it.
● WhatsApp groups require additional precautions since we do not always know all the members that compose them.
● Do not click on a link without checking the site it points to. The web of yore could infect our phone with some type of virus or steal personal data if it impersonates the identity of an organization (which is known as ‘ phishing ‘)
● Do not open any file received through WhatsApp or that has been downloaded immediately after accessing a web page link: it could initiate the installation of malicious code.
● Be wary of discount vouchers: their real goal is to collect personal information at the expense of a promotion that often turns out to be false.
● Avoid the extra features that some users promote on WhatsApp or social networks. These updates seek to subscribe to Premium messaging services, resulting in monthly charges from which it is difficult to disengage later.
● Take care of privacy by reviewing the settings for this purpose. For this, we access ‘Settings’, ‘Account’ and ‘Privacy’, where we can select who sees our last connection time; photo and profile information; real-time location; state…
Finally, we recommend alerting our contacts to those suspicious numbers, which we can previously block by clicking on the username and selecting ‘block contact’ or ‘report contact’.
How to avoid other Internet scams
If we talk about the Internet (no longer exclusively WhatsApp), we reviewed different forms of scams a few months ago. Also then we compiled the following recommendations from experts in technological crimes:
● Do not trust any bank notification that arrives in the mail.
● Do not install file-sharing applications if you do not fully understand how they work.
● Do not open messages or attachments from unknown senders.
● Do not open messages whose subject contains strange characters or data.
● Do not respond to messages that request personal information: user names, passwords, social security numbers, bank account or credit card numbers …
● Do not provide the email address or personal information on suspicious websites.
● Frequently scan the computer with an antivirus.
● Use two email addresses: one for reliable sources and the other to register on web pages.
● Check that the page we are browsing is secure (it must have the symbol of a padlock next to the navigation bar and the address begin with ‘ https: // ‘)
● Activate (provided it exists) the ‘ double check ‘ option to access mail or any web page. With this, in addition to a password, we will need a security code sent to our mobile phone.
And what can we do if we have already been the victim of a scam? In case we have lost money, the first step will be to contact the bank to try to cancel the transaction.
Regardless of the foregoing, whatever our case, we will contact the Civil Guard, Police to formalize a complaint. For this, we must attach all possible information, however brief or irrelevant it may seem.