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We are going to explain what to do if your WhatsApp account is hacked, so that you can regain control. It does not matter that you are not a famous person, because from time to time there will be some cybercriminal trying to take control of your social accounts, either to use them to access purchases in your name, to steal the account of other people, or just to annoy. And it never hurts to know how to act in these cases.

To avoid these things, it is advisable to always have WhatsApp two-step verification activated so that you need a second message to confirm your account, and never, NEVER forward the SMS that you may receive to confirm access to the account to anyone, although An acquaintance asks you saying that it came to you by mistake, because it could be someone who has also been hacked and that trust can be used to steal it from you too.

The problem is that you can log in to WhatsApp from a phone without a SIM, or a different one from the one you normally use. This is done to facilitate use in the case of having more than one phone, but it opens the door for other people to access from other countries in the event that they manage to convince or trick you into sending them an access code that It will arrive by SMS.

Recover your WhatsApp account

WhatsApp is an application that does not allow you to connect to more than one device at a time, so when someone logs in from another mobile, it will later close on yours. When this happens, you have to log in again with your mobile by typing the phone number. What happens is that if someone has just connected from another mobile, the process is blocked, and you cannot recover your account immediately.

When you are temporarily blocked from sending SMS, there is another method that is to click on the Call me option, so that an answering machine calls you to recite the code you must write over and over again. However, when someone else is actively using your account, this method doesn't always work, so you'll have to first try to kick whoever stole WhatsApp from you before you can get it back again.

When it seems that everything is lost, there is another method you can use, applying half measures to erase a number that has been stolen. What you have to do is send an email to support@whatsapp.com, which is the official support account. Inside the email, you have to write the text Stolen/lost phone: Please deactivate my account next to your phone number. You have to send the number in an international code, with the +34 in front if it is a Spanish number, or the account of your country in the event that your SIM is from another country.

When you write this email, WhatsApp will close all sessions of your account, so the attackers will have already lost access. WhatsApp recommends that you change your SIM, but this is only when it has been stolen. With the attackers gone, you can now get your number back. So, now go back into WhatsApp, and type your phone number to start the login process again.

When you do, you'll be brought back to the screen saying you need to write a code. If you've been fighting attackers, WhatsApp may tell you to wait a few hours before it can send you the code. To avoid waiting, you can click on the Call me button, pick up the call that WhatsApp will make to you (it can be from other countries) and write the code that repeats you over and over again.

And that's it. When you follow these steps you should be able to access your account again. Now, if you haven't done it before, it's vital that you activate the two-step verification as we explain here so that it is more difficult to steal the account, and that you try to learn from what happened so as not to make it easier for anyone to access it again. .

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