WhatsApp is one of the most popular chat messaging applications in the world and this is probably why a new adware uses the app’s name as a decoy to fool users into installing unwanted browser extensions and suggesting it to their friends as well. If you come across a website that offers you WhatsApp in different colours, you might want to read on. It all starts with use of a fake URL as instead of directing users to WhatsApp’s official website, the adware directs users to a different domain, which makes use of characters from Cyrillic alphabet, as pointed out in a report by The Next Web.
Most users might not realise that it is not the official website for the application and as it promises to offer WhatsApp in different colours, as spotted first by Redditor u/yuexist, one might follow the instructions it provides before getting suspicious.
The website reportedly asks users to share its link with their friends for verification. On sharing, your friends receive a message that says “I love the new colours for whatsapp” along with the URL of the fake website, as per the report. After doing this, users are made to install adware apps and then informed that the WhatsApp colours can only be accessed on WhatsApp Web and that they need to install an extension called ‘BlackWhats’. As this extension was available on Chrome Web Store, you might not get much suspicious and install it as well. Thankfully, Google has since removed the extension from the store.
If you are a regular reader of our website, it is unlikely that you will fall for this adware as there are many red flags to look out for. By no means is this an advanced technique but a novice user might end up installing adware apps and extension that they don’t really need because of this deceptive ploy. As WhatsApp itself cannot prevent you from falling for these adware, we would like to advise our readers to be careful about the URLs whenever they are browsing Internet to avoid these kinds of situations.
[“source-ndtv”]
