How to prevent strangers from adding you to WhatsApp groups to avoid falling for cyber scams

15 Jul. (Portaltic/EP) –

The scams through WhatsApp are numerous, like this one where cybercriminals resort to create groups with random numbers of users to try to offer fraudulent ways to obtain money or some other type of deception, which can be avoided from the configuration of the privacy settings.

Cybercriminals make use of multiple platforms to reach potential victims more directly and through different means. One of these platforms is the messaging network owned by Meta, WhatsAppfrom which malicious actors They abuse by creating groups with multiple numbers of unknown users.

In this sense, they use these groups as hook to try to scam the users that make it up, usually dealing with issues regarding investments in cryptocurrencies, offers fraudulent labor in which they offer a lot of money for little work or sending information and links to fake websites.

This was stated by the National Police in a post on X (formerly Twitter), where he has warned about these scams through strange WhatsApp groups, and has clarified that they are usually groups in which there are foreign phone numbersThis can be seen from the telephone prefix, which, instead of being the one used in Spain (+34), is preceded by another number. For example, the prefix for Taiwan would be +886.

You wake up one day and find in your 📲 that you have been added to a strange group of #WhatsApp

🚨 Be careful 👀

👉Follow these tips to avoid falling into a #scam and start the week well 🤗#Good morning 🌞 pic.twitter.com/O8Hv4gtbsv

— National Police (@police) July 15, 2024

This modus operandi can cause users to end up trusting and, therefore, access or register on fraudulent websitesthrough which cybercriminals can steal your information staff either install malware. The same thing happens when you simply click on certain links or access content shared in these groups.

Therefore, in the face of these situations, and in order to avoid falling into possible scams, the National Police has indicated that it is It is important to prevent unknown users from adding other users to strange WhatsApp groups without your permission.

To avoid this practice in WhatsApp, you must access the setting from the Meta application and, in the privacy tabjust select the option ‘My contacts’, within the section of ‘Who can add me to groups’.

Thus, Only phone numbers saved as contacts will be able to add the user in question to WhatsApp groupsthus preventing unknown people and potential scammers from interacting with new groups.

In addition to all this, if you are part of a strange group, users You can also choose to report the group, in situations where there are indications that it may be a fraudulent group or part of a scam.