WhatsApp announced three account security changes on Tuesday. They target the ways accounts usually get taken over: stolen verification codes, weak backup PINs and scam calls.
The biggest change is to two-step verification, the extra layer that protects an account even when someone gets hold of the one-time passcode. “Until now it was a six-digit PIN, we’ve now upgraded it to a full password: longer, alphanumeric, and even with special ch@racters to make it harder to guess. If you’ve been using ‘123456,’ this is your sign to upgrade,” the company wrote, as quoted by BleepingComputer.
Passkeys, which let users sign in with a fingerprint, Face ID or a screen lock, now allow more than one per account. That helps people who use both an iPhone and an Android phone. “More than a billion people have already set one up,” WhatsApp said, and new ones can be added under Settings > Account > Passkeys. TechCrunch pointed out that a passkey login requires physical access to the device holding the user’s half of the key, which makes remote takeover much harder.
A pause before answering
The third change is for Android. When someone who isn’t in your contacts calls, WhatsApp now shows whether the number is from another country and whether you share any groups. “Scammers rely on urgency – now you can take a beat with some more info before answering,” the company said.
These features add to other anti-fraud tools WhatsApp has released this year. In January it began rolling out Strict Account Settings, a lockdown-style mode for journalists and other high-risk users. In March, Meta said WhatsApp would warn users when a device-linking request might be fraudulent. Earlier in August it started a limited beta of Scam Alert, which uses an on-device machine learning model to flag likely scams. TechCrunch noted that usernames, which let people share a profile without giving out a phone number, arrived in late June.
WhatsApp says more than 3 billion people in over 180 countries use the service.
WebProNews is an iEntry Publication