WhatsApp Hacked

Darrenon91

Hi all,

My girlfriend received a message yesterday from a friend which seemed genuine looking for her to send back a code. Basically the below:

https://www.thesun.ie/tech/6217703/whatsapp-scam-steals-your-account/

It was early and she sent back the code without thinking. She has been locked out of her account now. She doesn't believe she had two factor authentication on, but now when we try get into the app it has the two factor authentication turned on, and when we say "Forgot Pin" it doesn't send an email to her email address obviously.

Is there any way of getting this back? Whatsapp support is very automated and not much help.

We cant even see an option to delete the account fully and start again.

Cheers.

IrishLFCFan

Hey, had the same thing happen to a friend of mine a few weeks ago. I think after a week, you will be able to log in without being prompted for the two factor code. You will have to wait the 7 days to get back in though.

This is posted on the whatsapp FAQ page:

How to recover your account
"Sign into WhatsApp with your phone number and verify your phone number by entering the 6-digit code you receive via SMS.

Once you enter the 6-digit SMS code, the individual using your account is automatically logged out.

You might also be asked to provide a two-step verification code. If you don't know this code, the individual using your account might have enabled two-step verification. You must wait 7 days before you can sign in without the two-step verification code."

irishgirl19

Mine has been hacked too. They sent a code to voicemail and were able to hack into it to retrieve the code.
Was your girlfriend able to get back into hers? WhatsApp have been no help

Darrenon91

irishgirl19 wrote: »

Mine has been hacked too. They sent a code to voicemail and were able to hack into it to retrieve the code.
Was your girlfriend able to get back into hers? WhatsApp have been no help

Hey, yes she got back in but had to wait a week, so was without Whatsapp for a week. But if you can do the two step authentication then I believe you can get back in straight away but it didn't work for my girlfriend and she had to wait a week.

irishgirl19

Darrenon91 wrote: »

Hey, yes she got back in but had to wait a week, so was without Whatsapp for a week. But if you can do the two step authentication then I believe you can get back in straight away but it didn't work for my girlfriend and she had to wait a week.

Thanks, looks like I'll be waiting too. The person who hacked it has turned on the 2 step verification so I can't get in. In the meantime they have my profile photo changed to some creepy picture.

youcancallmeal

Anyone know what's the endgame for people "hacking" whatsapp in this manner? It doesn't seem to be to get victims to pay to get access back

beauf

If people have posted personal information or photos to WhatsApp they might be able to use that.

People have GB of messages and photo's in whatapp. They can cross reference this with other data and build a profile. Then reset and account that access to a credit card like Amazon or such.

irishgirl19

beauf wrote: »

If people have posted personal information or photos to WhatsApp they might be able to use that.

People have GB of messages and photo's in whatapp. They can cross reference this with other data and build a profile. Then reset and account that access to a credit card like Amazon or such.

WhatsApp say they have no access to any previous chat history but I've reset online banking passwords to be safe

irishgirl19

youcancallmeal wrote: »

Anyone know what's the endgame for people "hacking" whatsapp in this manner? It doesn't seem to be to get victims to pay to get access back

An online article says they text your friends pretending to be you requesting money. To my knowledge no one in my contacts received a message.
However I did get an SMS saying Hi from a foreign number which I blocked straight away. I saved the number into WhatsApp on another phone and the person's profile picture was the same as the creepy photo they had changed my accounts profile picture to.
I can only speculate that they would've tried to get me to pay them to get back access if I hadve replied to his text.

homer911

Expect more of this. The Facebook data breach is apparently now widely accessible. This contains phone numbers and yours may be included

youcancallmeal

homer911 wrote: »

Expect more of this. The Facebook data breach is apparently now widely accessible. This contains phone numbers and yours may be included

Yep, I checked haveibeenpwnd and my number is included in the breach. I've turned on two step verification in whatsapp now

irishgirl19

This is what they done to me at 3am. Won't let me quote on my phone.

Scammers can bypass the verification process by using the victim's voicemail. To do this, the scammer repeatedly fails to verify the WhatsApp one-time registration code. This will allow WhatsApp to prompt the user to perform a "voice verification”, during which WhatsApp would call the user's phone and the one-time verification code would be read out in an audio message. Scammers who have timed their attacks at night when the user has switched off his/her phone or is away from it, would redirect the message to the victim's voicemail.

As most telco providers allow remote access and use default passwords for voicemail, scammers could easily hack into the voicemail account and recover the audio message which contains the code to login to the victim's account. Upon gaining access, the scammer can enable two-step verification, which would prevent the victim from regaining control over his/her WhatsApp account. Following this, the scammer may look at the victim's WhatsApp contact list to find new targets.