Mumbai police has received over 50 complaints in 60 days from people who have fallen prey to extortionists, who befriended them on the instant messaging app before hacking their accounts
Careful! WhatsApp 'friend' could hack into personal data and blackmail you
Illustration/Uday Mohite
The maximum conversations that you have in the day are now most susceptible to data hacking, the Mumbai cyber police has revealed. In the last two months alone, the crime branch has received more than 50 complaints from WhatsApp users about their private videos, personal photographs and files being hacked into and misused by extortionists.
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The accused, according to the police, have found an easy way to hack into your WhatsApp account by fraudulently accessing the Security Verification Code of the instant messaging app.
"We have come across several cases where people have been victimised after their WhatsApp account was hacked into," said deputy commissioner of police (cyber) Akhilesh Singh.
Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, an officer with the cyber crime police said that the hacker first gets hold of his target's cellphone number. This is when you are likely to receive a request from them hoping to befriend you. Meanwhile, the hacker initiates a request to change his WhatsApp number by feeding in your or the victim's number, using the 'Change Number' option in Settings.
This is when WhatsApp sends a security verification code to the number's owner — in this case, you, the victim. At this point, the hacker sells you a story, convincing you to share this code with him. And when you do, he uses it. In an instant, all your data becomes his.
The hacker restores all your contacts, photos and videos from the service provider's server into his device by using the Restore option. Later, he misuses this data at will to blackmail you and/or extort money," said an assistant inspector from the cyber police station.
The hacker doesn't stop here. He uses your identity and reaches out to people in your contact list to fraudulently seek security codes from them too, and the chain continues, the officer added.
The hackers have a bouquet of false stories to pick from to con users. In the case of an aspiring model whose WhatsApp account was hacked, the accused posed as a person attached with an event management company. He befriended her with the promise of helping her land an assignment, and later asked her to share a code that had been sent to her. The woman didn't realise that it was the verification security code he was referring to, and shared it. Her private photos were eventually used to blackmail her.
"Sometimes, the hacker poses as an NGO worker running an online campaign, and picks up a conversation with strangers. A senior female executive with a city five-star was duped of Rs 50,000 in similar fashion.
Another woman from the northern suburbs was conned after a fraudster hacked into her husband's account. He then posed as the husband, Asking her to share Rs 25,000 because he needed to shop, claiming that he had lost his wallet. The hackers also use false stories about medical emergencies to obtain the code, an officer said. "The solution is to uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp by registering your number again with the app server. In most cases, the victims' data is already compromised before they approach us," another officer said.
The police continue to investigate the above cases, and no arrests have yet been made.
'Keep strong passwords'
DCP (cyber) Akhilesh Singh
According to DCP (cyber) Akhilesh Singh, people do not understand the importance of having strong passwords. "One should strengthen their pass-words by using a combination of symbols, numbers and alphabets."
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