Like most cyber frauds, WhatsApp scams involve a largely sophisticated process where users unwittingly end up sharing confidential information. Scammers are mostly interested in harvesting personal information so they can impersonate users and access their money. Given that a billion users are on WhatsApp today, the platform becomes all the more attractive to these scam artists.
In other cases, they use spyware to gain complete control over the phone. This is done using a fake WhatsApp verification code that’s often difficult to detect and trace back.
In the last year, WhatsApp scams have gone up by 2,000%. This alarming trend is prompting experts to demand better from WhatsApp and to take adequate steps to protect data.