Spain is hooked on mobile phones: in the last five years, the percentage of people with a smartphone has gone from 41% to 81%, according to the Google Consumer Barometer Report. And to say hooked on the mobile means to a large extent hung up on WhatsApp: our country is the most fond of this app in Europe, according to the latest Eurobarometer, published at the end of 2016.
Data from the Sociological Research Center (CIS) indicate that 42.3% of Spanish mobile phone users say they use the famous application “continuously”, while 47.5% admit to using it “several times a day.”
WhatsApp, which has more than 1,200 million users in the world, has changed the way we interact. Today, sending an SMS is the technological equivalent of sending a crow in Game of Thrones, or, for those who do not follow the series, of sending a carrier pigeon.
But do we know that what we write in this app and other similar ones like Facebook Messenger is available to any hacker with a minimum of knowledge? And are we aware that protecting our privacy on the internet does not require much effort?
No, judging by a recent investigation by Brigham Young University in Utah (United States), which has found that most of the users of these applications are exposed to hackers, since they do not use the security options of these services or , directly, they do not know.
Put barriers on your mobile
The research aimed to find out if the public cares about protecting their privacy on mobile, and the conclusion is resounding: generally not.
Last year, WhatsApp activated the “end-to-end encryption system”. The messages that are sent are encrypted and decrypted when they reach the recipient’s device, so that no prying eye can peek at them on their way from web server to web server, not even the owners and creators of the application.
But this method, which is also used by the Viber app, is not entirely safe. Hackers with time and desire are able to get around it. Ideally, take advantage of the additional security options offered by these services, which few people are aware of, as Brigham’s research has found.
The most important is the two-step verification, which WhatsApp launched in early 2017, although it was already present in many other online services. What does it consist of?
It is a kind of second password. In the app’s own words, “it’s an optional feature that adds even more security to your account. When you activate the two-step verification, any attempt to verify your phone number in WhatsApp must be accompanied by a six-digit PIN that you, and only you, will have created ”.
Enabling this feature is as simple as opening WhatsApp and following these steps: > Settings> Account> Two-step verification> Activate.
This allows users to confirm the identity of whoever wants to chat with them, and to ensure that someone else – or even the owners of the application – is not wanting to view the messages.
