Not every scam starts with malware or a compromised account. Sometimes all it takes is a friend request or a link shared via chat.
Meta, in an effort to protect people from fraudsters, added anti-scam tools to WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger, including device linking warnings on WhatsApp and alerts for suspicious friend requests on Facebook, the social media giant said on Wednesday.
Plus, in a joint effort with law enforcement, international cops disrupted major scam centers targeting victims around the globe and arrested 21 alleged fraudsters, while Meta disabled more than 150,000 social media accounts linked to scam center networks.
As part of the tech company’s fraud crackdown, WhatsApp, we’re told, will now alert users when behavioral signals suggest a device-linking request may be an attempt to link a scammer’s device to the user’s account.
“For example, they may urge you to share your phone number, followed by a device linking code on your WhatsApp or try to trick you into scanning a QR code under false pretenses, which would then link the scammer’s device to your account,” Meta said in announcing the new feature.
Access to a user’s WhatsApp account allows miscreants to read victims’ messages, reply to them – and start new chats – while posing as the legitimate user, view contacts and photos, and in some cases, compromise other services such as Facebook or Instagram.
Facebook is also testing an alert system that warns users when a friend request shows signs of suspicious activity – for example, you don’t have any mutual friends, they just joined the platform days before sending a friend request, or their posts indicate a different country location than their profile info.
Messenger will also add advanced scam detection to users in more countries this month. This includes a feature that detects scam patterns in chats – such as celebrity impersonation images or links leading to spoofed webpages – and then asks users if they’d like to have a scam-detecting AI review the messages.
“Our experts and specialists in combating scams built advanced AI systems that can analyze multiple signals – such as text, images, and the surrounding context; consequently this assists us in spotting a broader range of more sophisticated scam patterns faster and at scale,” according to Meta.
These anti-scam features are part of the company’s ongoing efforts to disrupt fraud, and in a related announcement on Wednesday, the social media behemoth said that it partnered with the FBI, the US Department of Justice’s Scam Center Strike Force, the Royal Thai Police, and other international law enforcement agencies to take down scam centers in Southeast Asia targeting users in the US, UK, and countries across Asia and the Pacific region.
“This operation is a testament to how sharing information and coordinating our efforts can make real progress in disrupting this criminal activity at its source,” Chris Sonderby, Meta VP and deputy general counsel, said in announcing the disruption.
A similar operation in December resulted in the removal of 59,000 accounts, pages, and groups from Meta’s platforms and six arrest warrants.
Earlier this month, the Netherlands’ intelligence and military security agencies warned that Russian-linked hackers were actively targeting WhatsApp and Signal accounts used by government officials, journalists, and military personnel worldwide by tricking users into linking attackers’ devices to their accounts and persuading targets to share security verification codes or PINs. ®