Since its launch in 2009 for iOS (a year later it arrived on Android), the messaging application WhatsApp has become the most used worldwide, an application that today exceeds 2.000 million users, far above other messaging platforms such as Messsenger or Telegram.
Since 2014, he has been part of the Facebook company, after paying 19.000 million dollars, for a purchase that the regulators did not analyze at the time and that to this day would not have obtained the approval of the European Union. Being one of the applications that everyone installs every time they change phones, safety first.
WhatsApp security
And when I talk about security, I am talking about the different methods that the company offers us to prevent third parties can steal a WhatsApp account and use it with our telephone number, since this is the only identification used by the platform.
Telegram and Messenger use other identification systems, although we can also use our phone number, but this option is not mandatory. Every time we change our phone number, WhatsApp sends a 6-digit code to the phone number that we have entered, a code that allows you to verify that we are the legitimate owners of the phone number that we are used.
This method allows use WhatsApp on a smartphone with a different number the one we are using, but at the same time, it is also a security risk since friends of others have it quite easy to steal WhatsApp number.
Methods to verify WhatsApp
When it comes to verifying that we are the legitimate owners of the number that we want to use with WhatsApp, the messaging platform offers us two options:
- Through a 6-digit code that you send us in the form of SMS to our smartphone.
- Through a Phone call in which a machine will dictate the 6-digit code we need.
Through an SMS
To verify that we are the rightful owners of the telephone number that we want to use through a text message (SMS) we must carry out the following steps:
- Once we have opened the application, click on Accept and continue.
- Then the application we will request permission to send us notifications.
- Then we enter the phone number with which we want to use WhatsApp.
- Seconds later we will receive an SMS code on our smartphone that the application will automatically read and will be in charge of entering the received code.
- If for any reason, you do not read the code, we access the Messages application, open the message we have received and enter the number in WhatsApp.
Through a call
- Once we have opened the application, click on Accept and continue.
- Then the application we will request permission to send us notifications.
- Then we enter the phone number with which we want to use WhatsApp.
- If we don't just receive the text message within seconds of entering the phone number, we most likely won't receive it. To obtain this code, we must click on Call me.
- Seconds later, we will receive the call (in our language and with an international prefix of Ireland +44) indicating the confirmation number that we have to write in the application in order to use the messaging application associated with our phone number.
Activate WhatsApp without verification code
As we have seen in the previous section, WhatsApp offers us two different methods to verify that we are the legitimate owners of the phone number, the only two methods possible to do so: by SMS or a phone call.
WhatsApp will never contact us through any other method than this. The application does not allow us to establish an email where they send us the confirmation number and without that number, the application will not be able to access the company's servers and contact all users who use it on a daily basis.
On the internet you can find some web pages or YouTube videos that assure you that it is possible to receive the verification code skipping the only two options that WhatsApp makes available to us. None of the methods it shows work, absolutely none.
If that were so, everyone would be doing it, especially the most curious users and friends of others. On the internet that we know and use daily, there is no way to hide or limit access to information of this type. If it is possible to verify WhatsApp without a verification code, this information will be available on the Dark Web (not to be confused with the Deep Web) and it will not be exactly free or cheap.
I have received a verification code from WhatsApp
WhatsApp sends the SMS with the verification code through a special security system that does not show the sender's phone number, it only shows that WhatsApp is sending it to us. If we receive, without having requested it, a verification number of the WhatsApp account, it is because someone is trying to access our account on this platform.
If we then receive a phone call or text message requesting that code, We should NOT reply to the message, since if we do, it will be able to use our phone number as its WhatsApp account.
If by naive we fall into the trap, fortunately the solution is quite simple, since we only have to log out of WhatsApp and request the verification code again when logging in to the application for the first time.
How to protect WhatsApp account
If we want to protect our account so that absolutely no one has access to it, especially if we pay attention to the advice that I have commented in the previous section, WhatsApp offers us the Two-step verification.
What is WhatsApp XNUMX-Step Verification?
The two-step verification of WhatsApp allows us to establish a PIN, a code number that only we should know to be able to configure our phone number in the application. If we tend to forget things, WhatsApp allows us to enter an email during the activation process to avoid losing access to our WhatsApp account.
Through this email we can only disable XNUMX-step verification, but it will not show us the verification code that we have entered. If we activate two-step verification, the application will regularly remind us to enter it in the application to avoid forgetting it.
If we forget the PIN and we have not entered an email during the activation of the two-step verification, we will have to wait 7 days without using WhatsApp so that the platform can verify the phone number again.