As part of an effort to combat the growing number of scams made through WhatsAppthe Spanish National Police has issued a warning about the Telephone numbers of foreign origin that Users should treat with caution.
This notice comes at a time when WhatsApp, the most used messaging app globally, is increasingly becoming a vehicle for fraudulent activities.
The alert, broadcast through a video on TikTok, points out the particular suspicion about numbers that do not begin with the prefix +34, corresponding to Spain.
Users are advised to do not respond or interact with communications that come from unknown numbers, especially if they are international and if no contact is expected from abroad.
Deceptive tactics can be as convincing as messages suggesting personal or family emergencies to gain the recipient’s trust.
Among the prefixes identified as high risk are several from Asian and African countriessuch as +62 (Indonesia), +685 (Western Samoa), +27 (South Africa), +225 (Ivory Coast), +233 (Ghana), +234 (Nigeria), +355 (Albania), and + 387 (Bosnia).
These prefixes have been identified in previous scams and, according to police, are commonly used by cybercriminals to try to steal sensitive data or money.
In addition to calls and direct messages, another attack vector is WhatsApp groups. Cybercriminals frequently add users to groups full of foreign numbers in order to carry out more elaborate frauds.
The National Police advises users to check the composition of any new group to which they are added and leave immediately if the majority of the members are unknown or if the numbers are mostly foreigners.
A worrying aspect of these scams is that, once added to a group, user’s contact information is exposedand even if the group is left, scammers can continue attempting fraud through private messages.
Therefore, The recommendation is to block immediately any suspicious numbers before the scammer has a chance to request personal or financial information.
Android’s spam number recognition system and third-party apps have partially mitigated the problem, but cybercriminals continue to find ways to get around these barriers.
Although the developers at Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, are working on detection and prevention measures, fighting these online criminals remains a considerable challenge.
With these new warnings, the National Police seeks to reinforce the importance of caution among WhatsApp users and other communication platforms, emphasizing that the best defense is prevention and quick action to block and report suspicious numbers.
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