How to stay safe on whatsapp

8 Tips to Make WhatsApp More Secure and Private

WhatsApp is among the fastest growing instant messengers out there, and almost a social network in its own way. But if you are using it, there are some steps you should take to protect your security and privacy.

This is above and beyond WhatsApp's built-in end-to-end encryption. It's enabled by default and can't be turned off. The encryption ensures that your messages can only be read on the recipient's phone. It's the same for voice calls and video calls, both of which are encrypted.

1. Check Encryption for Sensitive Conversations

Even though WhatsApp encrypts all chats by default, sometimes you want to double-check. It's good practice to do that while sharing sensitive information like a credit card number with a trusted contact.

To verify the encryption, start a conversation with that contact. In the chat window, tap the contact's name, and then tap Encryption. You'll see something like this:

This 40-digit pattern is your security code. You can verify this code manually by comparing the digits, asking the contact to scan that QR code, or scanning your contact's code with the "Scan Code" button. As security researcher Martin Shelton notes, it's best to use a different messenger to verify that these numbers match.

2. Turn On Security Notifications

When a new phone or laptop accesses an existing chat, a new security code is generated for both phones. And WhatsApp can send a notification when the security code changes. This way, you can check the encryption with your friend over a different messenger, ensuring its security.

To turn on security notifications, go to WhatsApp > Settings > Account > Security > Show security notifications and flip the toggle to green, as pictured above.

3. Enable Two-Step Verification

If a service supports it, you should be using two factor authentication (2FA). This adds a periodic passcode to WhatsApp, and also ensures your data isn't accessed by someone else.

To activate 2FA, go to Menu > Settings > Account > Two-step verification > Enable. Follow the steps to create a six-digit PIN code that you can easily remember. Importantly, add your email address to retrieve that code in case you forget it.

The periodic checks for the passcode are randomized, so it's not exactly the same as password-locking your chat. But that's not 2FA's purpose anyway. The purpose is to stop someone else from accessing your WhatsApp account without your consent. It's truly one of the best new WhatsApp features, and even available on WhatsApp Web.

4. You Can't Password Protect WhatsApp

Unfortunately, there's no way to lock WhatsApp with a password. WhatsApp has said so explicitly and recommends using a third-party locking app for it on Android.

On iPhones, there is simply no way to password-protect WhatsApp. Apple doesn't allow it, whether with a passcode or Touch ID.

So for now, the periodic 2FA pin is your only hope. Apart from that, the only way to keep WhatsApp private from snooping eyes is to use a password or pattern lock on your phone.

5. Disable Cloud Backups (If You Care About Privacy)

The end-to-end encryption is awesome, but there's one loophole: WhatsApp backs up chats to Google Drive or iCloud. That way, if you reinstall it later, you can retrieve your old messages. But this backup isn't encrypted.

So if you really care about your privacy, then that's something you need to disable. Remember, storing your data with Apple and Google might not protect you against eavesdropping by governments.

To disable automatic cloud backups:

On iPhone: Go to WhatsApp > Settings > Chats > Chat Backup > Auto Backup > Off
On Android: Go to WhatsApp > Menu > Settings > Chats > Chat Backup > Backup to Google Drive > Never

6.

Beware of Common Scams

Since it's an instant messenger, you might get some scams on WhatsApp periodically. You need to know some of the popular ones and not fall for them. Socially engineered attacks are one way your WhatsApp messages can be hacked.

The most persistent ones talk about a premium version of WhatsApp, "WhatsApp Gold," or your account expiring. No matter how it's worded, the scam is about making you pay for WhatsApp. It shouldn't need to be said, but don't ever pay money for WhatsApp. The company has made it clear that WhatsApp will forever be free.

Read up on the most common WhatsApp scams and how to recognize and avoid WhatsApp spam so you know what to avoid.

7. Get the Official WhatsApp Desktop Apps

To use WhatsApp on your computer, you need to sync your phone with either WhatsApp Web or the WhatsApp desktop apps. To be on the safe side, get the official desktop app.

The main reason for this is that WhatsApp Web can be easily manipulated, the Electronic Frontier Foundation says. It's one of the biggest security threats WhatsApp users are facing. And when the EFF wrote that report, the recommended solution was to provide desktop clients.

Sure, there are better options than the official WhatsApp desktop client, but don't trade in security for a few extra features.

Download: WhatsApp for Windows or Mac (Free)

8. Protect Your Privacy on WhatsApp

WhatsApp isn't the most private messenger out there, but it gives users at least some control. Go to Settings > Account > Privacy to see everything at your disposal.

You can control who can see your Last Seen, profile photo, about, status, and live location. You can also turn off Read Receipts here, so the blue check marks are switched off.

There's no recommendation here, you can choose what works best for you. To learn more, here's everything you need to know about WhatsApp privacy settings and how to keep your photos safe on WhatsApp.

Do You Think WhatsApp Is Safe and Private?

Even with all these features, you should know that WhatsApp isn't completely secure. In fact, there are other more secure communication apps you can try instead. But for 99 percent of regular users, WhatsApp's security protocols should be good enough. Just ensure that you update the WhatsApp app regularly to stay safe from security breaches.

Image Credit: sdecoret/Depositphotos

6 easy ways to stay safe on WhatsApp

Home How To 6 easy ways to stay safe on WhatsApp

From hiding your profile photo to activating two-factor-authentication, here are six easy things to you can do and keep in mind to be safe on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is our super convenient go-to platform for instant messages, calls and even video calls these days. The fact that you can call, message and video call contacts from one platform itself makes things a lot easier for us.

Also, since WhatsApp's calls and chats are end-to-end encrypted, you don't have to worry about anyone intercepting your messages or your calls - not even Facebook and WhatsApp (in case it slipped your mind, Facebook owns WhatsApp).

However, while your messages and calls are safe, there are several bad elements out there that scam, manipulate and harass people on the platform.

To say safe from people like these, here are some simple steps you can follow -

1. Make sure only your contacts can see your profile picture

WhatsApp gives you an option to hide your profile picture from those who are not in your contacts. Go to ‘Settings', Click on ‘Account', then click on ‘Privacy'. Here you will see ‘Profile photo'. WhatsApp lets you change who can see your profile photo and you can pick between - Everyone, Nobody and My Contacts.

It's better to select either Nobody or My Contacts just to be safe.

2. Block people who you know you will not be ‘chatting' with

You might have to save a lot of numbers in your phone directory that you don't intend to speak to on WhatsApp too. Like a local store you call and order things from, or a delivery/courier service agent who needed help with location one time and you had to add them to your contact list for that.

It's easier to select and block a contact on WhatsApp than it is to find them on the contact list and delete their contacts. This will also prevent them from messaging you unnecessarily.

3. Do not accept video calls or voice calls from unknown contacts on WhatsApp

Sure, you can see the number when the call comes in but don't pick it up unless you recognise it. Or unless you know you asked the person to call you. This is especially important for video calls because there is no way to stop the front camera from turning on the very moment you answer the call.

If you have to pick up a video call from a strange number, manually cover the front camera so as the person on the other side cannot see you till you allow it.

Also Read: Be careful, a new text bomb is making WhatsApp crash and will hang your phone

4. Do not pick up calls or reply to messages from numbers that begin with prefixes that you do not recognise

The country code for India is +91, so you will be able to recognise local numbers if they call or message you. But if you suddenly see a very strange code, ignore the message/call just to be safe.

Many times scammers mask their numbers to look like international calls to trick people. If you have friends/relatives living abroad, make sure they tell you which number they are going to call from so as you can save it.

5. Never share any bank details, OTP or passwords with anyone on WhatsApp unless you are strictly certain of who they are

Scammers and hackers have managed to break into or take over WhatsApp accounts by posing as an acquaintance and pretending to ask for help because they have been logged out from their account. If you have two-factor-authentication (2FA) activated on your WhatsApp account, you will receive a SMS with an OTP on your registered number if anyone is trying to log into your account from another device.

Do not share this OTP with anyone unless you have triggered a new log-in yourself. Also, never share any sensitive information with anyone on WhatsApp like bank details or credit card details. Also, do not use WhatsApp on Web on laptops/PCs that aren't yours.

6. Activate two-factor-authentication (2FA)

This feature lets you set a double lock on your WhatsApp account. At the first level, you can protect your WhatsApp account by putting in a code lock, or face-unlock or finger-print lock on the app itself so as no one but you can open it. Then the second level is the addition of a registered number.

With the latter, whenever you change your main device and need to set up your WhatsApp account on a new device, the app will send an OTP to your registered number. You need to feed this OTP in to delink the older phone and set up the app on the new device.

If you have not triggered this yourself and suddenly happen to receive an OTP, ignore it and don't share it with anyone. Block the person asking for this OTP immediately.

Follow HT Tech for the latest tech news and reviews , also keep up with us on Twitter, Facebook, Google News, and Instagram. For our latest videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

First Published Date: 09 Sep, 19:12 IST

Tags: whatsapp

NEXT ARTICLE BEGINS

Tips & Tricks

5 Best hidden features Android users should know about

Take selfies on iPhone using Camera Remote on Apple Watch; here's how

WhatsApp Payments users can check their account balance easily; check steps here

Unsend an email in Gmail for as long as 30 seconds! Here's how

Hear your Apple iPhone 'speak the screen'; here is how

Editor’s Pick

Oppo Reno8 T 5G review: Style tops everything here

This iPhone of a Tattoo artist to sell at the price of a Mercedes SUV!

iPhone 14 long term review: Stands tall and strong no matter what you throw at it

Got your first iPhone? These MUST-do things that you should follow immediately

iPhone 14 Quick review: Worth it? Camera, Crash Detection to Gaming- You BETCHA!

10 ways to securely protect WhatsApp from hacking and wiretapping

Let's talk.

By default, the security of the WhatsApp messenger is so-so. The same goes for privacy. However, fine-tuning will, if not eliminate, then at least minimize the risks. We will teach you how to make the application more secure and help protect the privacy of your correspondence.

1) Turn on two-factor authentication

Launch the messenger, go to "Settings", then to "Account", click on "Two-step verification", and then - "Enable". Now come up with a PIN code (be sure to remember it). Don't forget to also include your email address in case you need to change your PIN in the future.

Now, when you need to confirm your messenger account, in addition to the SMS code, you will also need to enter a PIN.

2) Disable pop-up messages

Go to "Settings", select "Notifications", turn off "Show notifications" (you can separately disable pop-up messages, both from users and groups).

This will increase privacy - no one will see confidential correspondence on the screen of your locked smartphone.

3) Hide your own activity time

By default, WhatsApp users are shown each other's online activity time. That is, you can find out when you last launched the messenger.

If you do not want anyone to know that you have been online recently, then go to "Settings" → "Account" → "Privacy" and replace the item "Been (-a)" to "Own contacts" or "No one".

4) How to hide correspondence with a specific user?

It's easy to hide a conversation without deleting a conversation. To do this, just select the desired chat, then swipe it from right to left, and then click "Archive".

Yes, if someone has access to your smartphone and this someone is more or less an advanced user, he will find the conversation in the archives. However, not everyone knows about it. At least some protection.

5) Blocking users

And this will help you get rid of spammers, numerous scammers and people who are simply unpleasant to you.

It's simple - you need to add an annoying or unwanted contact to the black list. To do this, click on the user's contact, click on the avatar from above, go down to the very bottom, where we find the "Block" option. We block.

By the way, you can see the entire list of blocked users by going to "Settings" → "Account" → "Privacy" → "Blocked".

6) Disable message backup

In order to disable the backup of your correspondence in iCloud, you need to go to "Settings", then to "Chats", click on "Backup", and then to the item "Automatically". Change it to "Disabled".

The fact is that in the cloud all correspondence is stored unencrypted. If your account is hacked, your chats will also be accessed.

7) Hide information, statuses, photos

Go to "Settings" → "Account" → "Privacy". There we select the desired item: “Profile photo”, “Information” or “Status”, determine who will see your data (either “No one” or “My contacts”) - this way strangers will not be able to track you.

8) Hiding message read notifications

If you do not want your interlocutors to know that you have already read their messages (by default this is indicated by a blue double checkmark), you need to go to "Settings" → "Account" → "Privacy" and uncheck the box "Read records".

Unfortunately, after that you will not be able to see similar checkmarks from your contacts.

Yes, it only works in regular chats, not group chats.

9) How to hide information about reading a message without turning off read receipts

Still, there is a possibility to read messages without notifying the sender, while not turning off read receipts (as in the previous paragraph). Airplane mode to the rescue. We turn it on, read the message, close WhatsApp, turn off airplane mode. That's it - the sender will not be notified of the read.

10) Turn off the display of geolocation

You can share your geolocation in WhatsApp - the application allows you to quickly send the desired address. You can choose how long to share your location: 15 minutes, 1 hour, or 8 hours.

What if you need to disable this feature (let's say you accidentally shared your geolocation by mistake)? We go to "Settings" → "Account" → "Privacy", select "Geodata" there, and then "Stop sharing". All!

✅ Follow us on Telegram, VKontakte, and Yandex.Zen.

WhatsApp vulnerabilities and how to protect yourself from being hacked

Hello.

Pavel Durov needs to be thanked for this topic, as he uses every chance to kick his direct competitor in the face of WhatsApp. This time, Pavel burst out with a lengthy message that WhatsApp is insecure (once again) and can be broken.

Let's give a translation of what Durov said:

Hackers could have full access (!) to everything on the phones of WhatsApp users.

This was made possible by a security issue that was reported by WhatsApp itself last week. All the hacker had to do to gain access to your phone was send you a malicious video or start a WhatsApp video call with you.

You're probably thinking, "Yeah, but if I update WhatsApp to the latest version, I'll be safe, right"?

Not exactly.

The exact same WhatsApp security issue was discovered in 2018, then another in 2019 and another in 2020 (click on each year's link to see the corresponding vulnerability). And yes, in 2017 before that. Until 2016, WhatsApp had no encryption at all.

Every year we hear about a problem in WhatsApp that puts all users' devices at risk. This means that there is almost certainly a new security breach already in place. Such problems are hardly accidental - they are laid down by backdoors. If one backdoor is found and needs to be removed, another is added (read Why WhatsApp will never be secure to see why).

It doesn't matter if you're the richest person on earth - if you have WhatsApp installed on your phone, all your data from every app on your device is available, as Jeff Bezos found out in 2020. That's why I deleted whatsapp from my years old device. Installing it creates a door to enter your phone.

I don't push people to switch to Telegram. With 700+ million active users and 2 million daily registrations, Telegram does not need any additional promotion. You can use any messaging app you like, but stay away from WhatsApp - it's been a snooping tool for 13 years.

Durov has been creating the image of a fighter for privacy for many years, which sometimes looks funny. But the claims against WhatsApp are quite justified, since the company is really trying to collect as much data about you and your actions, in addition to this, “accidentally” there are security holes that allow you to steal user data. And here it doesn’t matter if it was done on purpose or by accident, the fact is that you can be hacked.

As in any horror story, there is a certain distortion in Durov's words, you cannot get full access to all your data through WhatsApp. Go to app permissions and see exactly what WhatsApp can do.

By and large, it can steal your contacts, as well as photos and videos, plus all the documents that you store on your device. On iOS, the situation is about the same, there are no differences. For example, installing unknown applications from this application is prohibited by default for everyone (on iOS there is no such option at all). So you can feel relatively safe, not to worry that applications unknown to you will appear.

But downplaying the problem and dismissing it is also not worth it, access to your data is an unpleasant moment. And here the question arises, how much do you need WhatsApp and how to put up with the fact that it is full of holes. The same Telegram was not caught on vulnerabilities, a couple of times competitors made formidable accusations, but they could not back them up with something significant. Like, they just know that they are there too. In theory, of course, there are, in practice we do not know about them.

The easiest way is to limit the permissions of WhatsApp, but then the application will be inapplicable in practice, this way looks like pure masochism, then it’s easier to refuse it altogether. By the way, in Russia, the popularity of WhatsApp has long declined, it is used out of habit by a fairly small group of people, Old Believers, who are not inclined to exchange for something new. If you look at the application traffic, it will become clear that WhatsApp is kept for show, since the cat cried traffic, the main communication goes to Telegram.

We conducted a survey in our Telegram channel about what messengers you use (yes, it's funny - to poll in Telegram what messenger you have), but many people have a bunch of Telegram and WhatsApp.

Poll can be found here

I have exactly the same bundle, only WhatsApp is on the second device, where there is absolutely nothing, and at the same time it has been moved to the protected KNOX folder. In Samsung, this is a phone within a phone, where the permissions for applications are exactly the same, but they do not have access to the main memory. That is, in fact, this is not just my second phone, but also another protected zone inside it, from which WhatsApp cannot escape, and at the same time access my files. At the same time, I see notifications as usual, I do not miss messages.

Perhaps you don’t have a Samsung smartphone, then you will have to get out of the situation somehow differently, for example, start the same WhatsApp on the second phone (if you have something to hide, then most likely there will be money for a second phone) .

Most people habitually shrug off security and are ready to share their photos with those who wish, and so, they say, there is nothing like that. In principle, the way it is, we do not hide any secrets in photos and videos, but the very idea that someone can delve into my memories or work files is unpleasant to me.

The biggest annoyance is not remote hacking of your WhatsApp, the probability of this event is minimal. Usually, data is leaked from your phone when someone gains access to it. Turn on the app lock with your fingerprint, it will help you avoid the curiosity of strangers who somehow managed to take your phone without your knowledge.

Any safety stories attract attention. There are no examples of mass hacking of WhatsApp, potential vulnerabilities are greater than those of other instant messengers, which is a fact. But how exactly you will encounter problems, only you can assess - think adequately about your lifestyle and what you are doing. Interested in hacking? Then, apparently, it is worth somehow protecting yourself, after all, this is your life and your information.