WhatsApp is by far the most popular text messaging network on the planet, but these days it's being used to widely distribute adware by hackers. We are talking about hackers who exploit the desire of WhatsApp users to customize their application for use on mobile terminals, creating a website through which they distribute adware.
It all starts with a message with a link that many WhatsApp users share, it being masked to resemble the website whatsapp.com, but in reality it is шһатѕарр.com. Cyrillic letters are used to hide the real address of the website, blackwhats.site, WhatsApp users being tricked into accessing the application's official website, when in fact they are accessing the hackers' website.
After accessing that website, WhatsApp users are promised the possibility to install various themes for the application, but to have access to them they have to do something. More precisely, they have to share that page with viruses to all their friends on social networks, and then they are asked to install a Google Chrome extension on their computers, which gives them access to the supposed WhatsApp themes.
WhatsApp - beware of this virus distributed over the network
Of course, this extension for Google Chrome, distributed through the official Google store, contains an adware that takes advantage of the naivety of WhatsApp users and infects their computers. With this adware installed on the computer, hackers can display any kind of advertisements they want over the websites accessed on the computer, not on WhatsApp, sometimes making internet browsing impossible.
Distributing this dangerous adware through WhatsApp ensures maximum exposure to the over 1.5 billion users, so there are an extraordinary number of potential victims. Of course, everything is based on the exploitation of a desire of users to have WhatsApp in any color and shape they want, but unfortunately this is not the method to get everything.
It is difficult to say whether those at WhatsApp can impose filters to block the distribution of information, especially since links to websites can change quickly. It is important that WhatsApp users know about this scam, so warn your friends and share this article to help them not to infect their computers with adware.
