Cyber Crime

Did you receive a WhatsApp subscription ending email or text? Watch out!

Did you receive a WhatsApp subscription ending email or text? Watch out! It is a scam to steal your payment and personal data.

Researcher Graham Cluley is warning of bogus ‘WhatsApp subscription ending’ emails and texts.

Internet users are receiving an email pretending to be from WhatsApp and warning them of the ending for an alleged WhatsApp subscription.

Although the company stopped requesting any payment since January 2016, crooks are attempting to exploit the fact that in the past, WhatsApp used to ask users to pay a fee after they had been using the service for a year.

Using this social engineering attack, crooks aim to trick users into clicking links including in the messages that might result in they handing their payment information over to attackers.

“Have you received an email claiming to come from WhatsApp that warns that you have been using the service for more than one year and that it’s time to take out a subscription?”

“Beware! The emails are, of course, a scam designed to trick you into clicking links that might result in you handing your payment information over to fraudsters.” states the blog post published by Graham Cluley on the ESET blog.

Below a portion of the malicious email:

Your subscription is ending soon

Please update your payment information now

UPDATE YOUR PAYMENT INFORMATION

Our records indicate that your WhatsApp trial service is exceeding the one year period. At the completion of your trial period your WhatsApp will no longer be able to send or receive message. To continue using WhatsApp without interruption, we need you to subscribe for any of our subscription periods.

As usual, you should always be wary of unsolicited email messages and SMS text messages claiming to come from WhatsApp demanding payments or the verification of your account’s credentials.

“You ultimately decide what links you click on, and whether you hand over your passwords and payment card details. Always think twice, because the wrong decision could prove costly.” concluded Graham Cluley.

[adrotate banner=”9″]

Pierluigi Paganini 

(Security Affairs – WhatsApp scam, phishing)

[adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

CISA adds Microsoft Windows Print Spooler flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

U.S. CISA added the Windows Print Spooler flaw CVE-2022-38028 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.…

57 mins ago

DOJ arrested the founders of crypto mixer Samourai for facilitating $2 Billion in illegal transactions

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced the arrest of two co-founders of a cryptocurrency mixer…

1 hour ago

Google fixed critical Chrome vulnerability CVE-2024-4058

Google addressed a critical Chrome vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-4058, that resides in the ANGLE graphics…

6 hours ago

Nation-state actors exploited two zero-days in ASA and FTD firewalls to breach government networks

Nation-state actor UAT4356 has been exploiting two zero-days in ASA and FTD firewalls since November…

18 hours ago

Hackers hijacked the eScan Antivirus update mechanism in malware campaign

A malware campaign has been exploiting the updating mechanism of the eScan antivirus to distribute…

1 day ago

US offers a $10 million reward for information on four Iranian nationals

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned four Iranian nationals for their…

1 day ago

This website uses cookies.