World News – USA – WhatsApp users warned of new « hacking » scams ahead of New Year’s Eve

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WhatsApp fans need to be on the alert for the start of the new year. In front of millions of chat app users who rely on Facebook’s own messaging platform, a new scam will pop up to wish friends and family a happy 2021. In this emerging WhatsApp scam, users have sent a series of suspicious-looking messages showing the progress of hackers trying to break into your account and steal your WhatsApp texts, photos, videos and other key files.

As users watch, the troublesome countdown ends with a text message stating that 100 percent of your information has been stolen. After that, WhatsApp users will be notified that their phone has been hacked.

For anyone who is not a cybersecurity expert, this could be extremely worrying. Especially since so many of us keep private text messages, valuable family photos or confidential documents that we don’t want to lose in our WhatsApp files.

However, as the popular Twitter account @WABetaInfo has pointed out, there is no need to be frustrated – this is all an elaborate idea developed by scammers to ring alarm bells and cause panic. @WABetaInfo, which discovered a number of unfinished WhatsApp features by analyzing the beta before it was released – so knows a thing or two about WhatsApp – states that these messages are not proof that you have been hacked, and people do have advised scammers not to send money when asked to.

On Twitter, WABetaInfo said: « If you receive a message like this on WhatsApp, you will not be hacked. It is a fake. Please don’t panic. And if they ask for money, just ignore it, report it as spam and block it! It is very important ».

The warning comes because there are increasing reports that WhatsApp will be released from April 1. January 2021 will block access to millions of smartphones. It has been claimed that devices will be running iOS 9 and Android 4 as of that date. 0. 3 cannot access WhatsApp.

Such a change would affect a number of aging devices like the Apple iPhone 4. However, before you head out to update your phone, this is something you should point out.

WhatsApp supports iOS 9 and Android 4. 0. At least this change will be made on Jan.. January 2021 not enforced.

In fact, this change in support already took place earlier this year on Jan.. February 2020 in force. WhatsApp warned of this change last year. The following message was displayed on the iOS support page: « WhatsApp for iPhone requires iOS 9 or higher. On iOS 8, you will no longer be able to create new accounts or recheck existing accounts. If WhatsApp is currently active on your iOS 8 device, you can use it until the 1st. Use February 2020. For the best experience, we recommend that you use the latest version of iOS available for your phone. « 

WhatsApp said the decision to end support for older devices was due to the fact that the app’s feature list could be expanded in the future.

The bottom line, however, is that you can still use WhatsApp on your phone. There is no need to worry that this will change as soon as the watch turns on Jan.. January strikes midnight.

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New Year’s Eve, WhatsApp, mobile phone