How To Secure WhatsApp Account & Prevent Hacking?

WhatsApp is a great and very popular messaging App with over a billion users worldwide. The safety and security of your WhatsApp account and messages is very important. It is very very difficult for hackers to directly hack into WhatsApp servers. Even if they are able to do so, they won’t find any of your messages there. Because the messages you sent is not stored on WhatsApp server once it is delivered. So here we have discussed here how you can secure WhatsApp account and prevent it’s hacking.

How your WhatsApp could possible be hacked?

To secure WhatsApp account and prevent it from getting hacked, it’s important to know what are the ways by which your WhatsApp can possibly be hacked? So how can someone get hold of your WhatsApp account and check all your chats? Well, there are some tricks by which your friend or any one who have your phone for a while can hack into your WhatsApp account. Below I will describe all the possible methods by which your WhatsApp chats can be hacked. These information are only for learning and education purpose.

1) By Extracting And Transferring WhatsApp Database

With this small trick anyone can get hold of all of your WhatsApp chats. This trick in only limited to Android Phones. If anyone have your mobile phone (unlocked ) for 5 mins they can easily get hold of all of the WhatsApp chats. So how it works? And how can you hack someone WhatsApp messages?

Connect the target device to your computer via USB cable. The phone should be unlocked and set to File Transfer mode. Now Go to My Computer and click on the phone name to open it’s storage. Then navigate to Internal Storage > WhatsApp > Databases. There you will see some of the latest WhatsApp back ups with dates. Copy the latest backup (the backups with dates on it) and paste it on your Computer. That’s all!!!

You have now the database of your friend’s WhatsApp chats. The only problem is the file is encrypted and protected. So, you need to decode the file to read all the messages on your computer. To see all the conversation on your phone, Install WhatsApp on any new device but do not start the app yet. Rename the database file to “msgstore.db.crypt”. Connect your device to the PC via USB. Because you’ve already downloaded WhatsApp you will see the folder WhatsApp > Databases. Create the folder manually if you don’t see it. Now transfer the database file to the database folder.

Now open WhatsApp and verify your phone number. Tap on restore when asked to restore from existing backup. You will have all your friends conversation on your Android phone. Note: With this you can only see the old chats of your friend, you can’t see the new messages coming in.

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2) MAC Address Spoofing

With this method you can have complete access of WhatsApp account of your friend. For this hack you need the MAC address of the target device. Borrow your friends’ android phone which you want to spy for just one minute. Go to Settings > About phone > Status > Wi-Fi MAC Address and note down the MAC address. You need to keep the phone for a while before you hand it over to your friend.

Now, uninstall WhatsApp and delete its folder on your device and change MAC address of your device to your friends device MAC address. You can do this by using MAC Spoofing apps. After MAC address is changed, install WhatsApp and open it. When asked for mobile number enter your friends number and a verification code will be sent to your friend’s phone. Enter that and now you have exact replica of your friend’s WhatsApp. You can track all the messages going in and out.

3) Hacking WhatsApp using WhatsApp Web

With WhatsApp Web you can easily create a replica of your friend’s WhatsApp chats without disturbing your own WhatsApp account. To do that you need your friend’s mobile phone for a while. Open Google Chrome on your PC and go to WhatsApp Web and you will see a screen with QR code. If you are using mobile phone, switch to desktop view mode by going to setting and selecting “Request Desktop Site”. Now open WhatsApp on your friends mobile and tap on Menu Icon (Three horizontal dots) > WhatsApp Web and then scan the QR code. And don’t forget to tick mark the “Keep me signed in” option.

Now you are logged in to WhatsApp web on your computer with your friends account. You will be able to see all the existing messages and the new ones coming as well. Note: Both you mobile or computer and your friends mobile phone need to be connected to internet.

How To Secure WhatsApp Account And Prevent Hacking?

That was all about how you can hack or get hold of someone’s WhatsApp chats. Now I will tell you how you can secure WhatsApp account and prevent it’s hacking. First thing first, check for WhatsApp updates regularly and update it if new version is available. Also make sure that the mobile phone you are using is also up to date. Now to counter and secure your WhatsApp follow the methods below.

Logout From WhatsApp Web

WhatsApp web is around for quite a sometime now. With WhatsApp web you can use WhatsApp on your PC. If you feel that the messages you are receiving are already read in the chats. Or there is a reply of your friends message which you haven’t done. Or if you feel that your last seen is different from what it should be. Then it means that someone else is using your WhatsApp account. That is done by creating the replica of your WhatsApp using WhatsApp web on any phone of computer. Don’t worry, you can easily prevent it by logging out from WhatsApp Web. Here’s Complete Guide to Logout from WhatsApp web.

Secure Your WhatsApp by Preventing Authentication Hack

Now, the first two hacks, transferring the database and MAC address spoofing might not work if you are using the updated version of OS and WhatsApp. With these hacks the users with older version of WhatsApp and OS and be tricked. WhatsApp keeps updating it’s App to prevent misuse of your account and messages. To add more security you can enable 2-step verification to secure WhatsApp account.

On the other hand WhatsApp app on your phone periodically checks for an active phone number and if it doesn’t find a match, it will prompt you to re-verify to use it again. Therefore, multi-phone use of the same WhatsApp account on multiple phones usually doesn’t work. Also, WhatsApp is now providing end to end encryption. It ensures only you and the person you’re communicating with can read what is sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp.

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So, that was all about how to secure WhatsApp account and it’s messages and prevent any kind of hacking. So make sure that you trust the person to whom you are giving your phone. “Enjoyed this article? Click the 💚 to help other people find it and do Subscribe to my Medium Profile.” Like Us On Facebook.

Originally published at www.techblogout.com on April 22, 2017.