Ouagadougou: The Central Brigade for the Fight Against Cybercrime (BCLCC) has raised an alert following an increase in cases of WhatsApp account hacking, as reported by its Technical Assistance and Technological Monitoring Service.

According to Burkina Information Agency, malicious individuals are targeting internet users by impersonating religious figures or exploiting previously compromised Facebook accounts. The primary goal of these cybercriminals is to compromise WhatsApp accounts and defraud the victims’ relatives and contacts.

The strategy employed involves reaching out to victims from spoofed or hacked accounts, offering them supposed membership in WhatsApp groups focused on prayer or religious activities. Under this guise, the cybercriminals request victims to share their WhatsApp phone numbers.

Once these numbers are obtained, the attackers attempt to create new WhatsApp accounts in the victims’ names. They then request the confirmation code, automatically sent by the application, by posing as re
ligious leaders and claiming that the code is needed to finalize the user’s integration into the group.

Providing this code gives scammers complete control over the victim’s WhatsApp account. They use these hacked accounts to solicit money from contacts under various false pretenses, including health or humanitarian emergencies.

In light of this threat, the BCLCC urges the public to exercise increased vigilance. It advises never sharing your WhatsApp verification code with anyone and always enabling two-factor authentication on the app.

The Brigade also encourages anyone who is a victim or witness of a suspicious attempt to report immediately via the official Alerte-BCLCC platform.