WhatsApp Is NOT Offering 1000 GB Internet Data for Free!

If you don’t know anything about WhatsApp, you must have been living under a rock. It’s almost like saying you don’t know Facebook, and there’s definitely some correlation here because WhatsApp Messenger is owned by Facebook. It is a freeware app that allows cross-platform messaging and provides the Voice over IP service. As of February 2018, WhatsApp already had more than one and a half billion users. It means that it is arguably the most popular messaging application in the world.

Needless to say, this kind of popularity is followed by various security issues, too. The more people use a particular application; the bigger is the chance that those people will be either scammed or duped by malevolent third parties that want to make an easy profit. Today, we would like to tell you more about the latest WhatsApp free data scam that has recently rocked the cybersecurity world.

What is the WhatsApp free data scam?

Phishing scams are a daily occurrence, and we believe that there are a lot of users out there who already know how to recognize a potential scam. A phishing scam reaches us with the intention to either steal our money or our personal information. For the most part, the message that we receive offers us something that we otherwise would not be able to refuse.

The same goes for the Whatsapp free data scam. According to ESET, the latest phishing scam comes forth offering a whopping 1000 GB of free data on the occasion of the WhatsApp service turning ten years old this year. It definitely sounds like the real deal because companies often offer freebies, discounts, and other additional services on special occasions. However, this one offer is absolutely fake, so let’s see how people figured out it was not worth a dime.

How does this phishing scam reach you? Well, since it is the Whatsapp free data scam, the messages that carry fake information reach their potential victims through the Whatsapp application.

The first sign that the message is a phishing scam lies in the hyperlink that comes with the notification. All the official notifications should come from the official WhatsApp domain. However, the link in the scam message automatically tries to redirect you to some unrelated website. The link is not a shortcut, so you can see the landing page, and if the page has nothing to do with the official app, you should know better than to click it.

But what happens if users get over-excited and click the link, thinking they will get 1000 GB for free? Well, at first glance, it will be hard to tell that something is off because clicking the link redirects the user to a survey page.

The survey looks like it was put up there by WhatsApp. But even if you answer all the questions in the survey (which you shouldn’t do because you would only let these crooks know more about you), you won’t get the 1000 GB unless you share the survey with at least 30 other people. That sounds frustrating and confusing, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because it’s a staple example of a phishing scam that doesn’t lead you anywhere.

The scam itself is devised to generate clicks and increase web traffic. It employs the pay-per-click system that allows the crooks to make a profit each time clueless users click affiliated ads. So the more users go through the survey and the ads, the more money these scammers make. Luckily, this phishing scam doesn’t lead to a malware infection, and it doesn’t look like they try to steal your identity, but that doesn’t mean you should take this phishing campaign lightly.

What are the protection measures?

Thankfully, it doesn’t look like this phishing scam is as dangerous as the other WhatsApp issues we have discussed before. For instance, we have already talked about protecting your WhatsApp account from being hacked, and we discussed how you can reset your WhatsApp password.

In a sense, when we deal with phishing scams, there are always a few things you can do, but there are more things that you have to take into consideration. For example, one of the things you can do is change your WhatsApp password because receiving this phishing message might mean that your password has been compromised. To come up with a new strong password, you can use Cyclonis Password Manager. This free tool will help you generate and store complicated passwords that will be harder to crack by brute force.

Also, when it comes to less pragmatic things, we have to educate ourselves about scams and about how we fall for them. Perhaps the first mistake is to think that scams and phishing attacks are something that is far away from us. But, as you can see, the WhatsApp scam can reach you through your own device, so thinking like that is a mistake. We have to be aware of the fact that we could always get exposed to a new scam message.

What’s more, sometimes scam messages look more than real, but they tend to come with an urgent tone that wants to make you hurry. Click now to get your free 1000 GB! Act now before the offer expires! Phishing scams employ the language that subconsciously pushes the user into taking action. And this urgency is also something that gives the scam away.

Finally, there’s this overconfidence that “it won’t happen to me.” Of course, the phishing attack success rate is very low. Ultimately, most of scam messages are either ignored or deleted immediately. Various reports claim that only 4% to 8% of all phishing scams are actually successful. However, that rate should be 0% and the fact that WhatsApp free data scam and other fraudulent messages still manage to trick users into believing them clearly shows that we have a long way to go.

Therefore, you have to always double-check when you receive a seemingly amazing offer. Reread that email. Check that message. Do not click the link or download the attachment just because the message tells you so. It’s always better to be safe than sorry. And remember that the next scam you encounter might not be as benevolent as the WhatsApp free data scam.

August 21, 2019
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