Kaspersky Lab’s Securelist has released its Spam and Phishing Report for the second quarter of 2021 and revealed several WhatsApp scams circulating on the widely-used mobile messaging platform.
Advance-fee fraud remained a popular technique to trick people into transferring money to scammers on the promise that they would receive a larger sum in return. Victims were asked, for example, to take a short survey about WhatsApp and to send messages to several contacts in order to receive a prize,” Securelist stated.
Another variant of the scam tries to persuade you that you have won a large sum of money. Both scenarios end the same way: the scammers promise a large payout, but only after receiving a small commission.”
Securelist also noted several credential-stealing techniques being used on WhatsApp. One exploited the news that Facebook was changing WhatsApp’s privacy policy. Scammers set up fake websites inviting users to a WhatsApp chat with “beautiful strangers”.
When attempting to enter the chat room, the potential victim landed on a fake Facebook login page with the message, “Log in to your Facebook account to connect to Whatsapp. With all the discussion around WhatsApp’s privacy policy allowing it to share certain personal information with Facebook, victims may not think it strange that a WhatsApp chat service asks you to log in with a Facebook account.
Typing your Facebook username and password into this false login page sends your credentials to the scammers, who may use it in begging scams, try to log into your other accounts where you’ve reused the same password, or sell it. Another WhatsApp-related attack Securelist identified was emails with a link pointing to a fake WhatsApp voice message.
Securelist stated that this likely belongs to the same category as the “beautiful strangers” phishing attack. If you follow the link in the email, the recipient risks handing over their personal data to the attackers and downloading malware to their computer or phone.
To avoid being duped into giving up your private information to criminals, WhatsApp previously advised users to watch out for messages which:
Ask you to tap on a link
Ask you to share your personal information
Ask you to forward the message
Say that you have to pay to use WhatsApp
In other news – Trouble in paradise for Natasha Thahane and Thembinkosi Lorch?
There seems to be trouble in paradise between actress Natasha Thahane and her soccer bae Thembinkosi Lorch. Fans couldn’t help but notice that both of them unfollowed each other on Instagram.
But that’s not it, it seems as though they also removed each other’s pictures on the Gram too. Learn more
Source: mybroadband
