Has your WhatsApp account been hacked? It doesn’t matter that you’re not a famous person, because cybercriminals don’t care. Being able to take control of your social networks can be useful either to make purchases on your behalf, to steal other people’s accounts, or to obtain a financial benefit in exchange for returning yours. Therefore, it never hurts to know how to act in these cases, especially considering that there is no doubt that WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging applications on the planet. Precisely because of its popularity, the app is also used by malicious individuals to spread misinformation or even to steal our data.
To begin with, it is advisable to always have the two-step verification of WhatsApp activated so that you need a second message in order to confirm your account. It is an additional layer of security that acts as a password for your WhatsApp account and never (we should write this in capital letters) forward the messages that reach us to confirm access to the account, even if someone asks you, because that person, still being trusted, it could have also been hacked and therefore become the next victim yourself. Remember that giving someone your six-digit verification code to log into the account can lead to your WhatsApp account being hacked.
How to recover a hacked WhatsApp account
To recover our WhatsApp account we have to log into WhatsApp again with our phone number. You will receive a six-digit verification code by SMS that WhatsApp will read and allow us to log in automatically. Once you log in, the hacker’s account will be automatically closed. In case the hacker activates two-step verification after gaining access to your WhatsApp account, they will ask you to enter that code. In this case, you will have to wait seven days to recover the account. The good news is that while you wait for the account to be recovered, the cybercriminal will no longer be able to access it. This is because WhatsApp does not allow the same phone number to be connected to more than one device at the same time, so when someone logs in from another mobile, the previous one is closed.
“Regardless of whether you know this verification code, the other person logged out of your account once the 6-digit SMS code had been entered,” WhatsApp comments on its website. “WhatsApp will never ask for private information. If you receive a message from a WhatsApp chat without the green verification badge, it is false, ” he continues.
This six-digit code is like a password, it is secret and should not be shared: in fact, we should not share the password of any of our other social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter …) because it is something private.
What if I cannot or do not want to receive an SMS to recover my account?
You can also opt for the call option to have an answering machine call you to recite the code you must type over and over again. However, when someone else is actively using our account , this method does not always work , so you should first try to kick out the person who stole your WhatsApp account before recovering it again.
Is there any more method?
That’s how it is. Ultimately you can send an email to [email protected], which is the official support account. Inside the mail, you must write the text Lost / stolen phone: Deactivate my account next to the phone number. You have to send the number in an international code, with +34 in front if it is a Spanish number, or the account of your country if your SIM is from another country. When WhatsApp receives this email, it will close all sessions of your account, so the attackers will have already lost access. And you can start the login process to recover your stolen account.
