The WhatsApp groups They are often used by the cyber scammers and being added to one of them, obviously without prior consent, is an experience that many users of the platform have had. So, one day you discover that you have been added to one created by a number with a suspicious prefixbut where a lot of people are animatedly chatting about, for example, Cryptocurrencies and investments. Everyone seems to be doing very well following the advice of a supposed expert and if you are interested in the subject, a private conversation is established with the scammer in which he will do his best. so that you end up ‘investing’ where you shouldn’t, providing bank details or other types of personal information. This is one of the many schemes that are developed in this space and to which WhatsApp wants to put a stop to this with a new feature that it is deploying globally.
Meta has announced the context cards that have the function of provide relevant information about the group a user is invited to joinWith this new feature, when you receive an invitation to a group you will be able to see in the profile information that is presented the date that group was created, a summary of its purpose, and the person who originally created it. This will help you make a more informed decision about whether to accept the group invitation or not.
Will Cathcarthead of WhatsApp, has explained on his channel in the application that ‘we are adding a new security feature for groups: Context Cards! This feature It will give you more information about a group if someone you don’t know adds you, and it will make it easier to leave and report a suspicious group.. This is another layer of security that we’ve built on top of existing features like silencing unknown callers, privacy review, and controlling who can add you to groups.’
The deployment is gradualso it may still take some time for the feature to be operational for all users.
How to prevent unknown numbers from including you in WhatsApp groups
As Cathcart mentions in his message, the most direct way to avoid having to find yourself in these types of situations is Set up the app so that you decide who can invite you to a groupBy default, any phone number can do this and to change this setting you have to follow these steps:
- Opens WhatsApp and tap on the menu of the 3 vertical points in the upper right corner of your mobile screen.
- Choose Settings and then Privacy.
- Tap on Groups and then in My contacts so that only numbers that are in your address book can add you to WhatsApp groups.