WhatsApp Security: 9 ways to keep your conversations private

Some days ago, I was discussing with my girl about WhatsApp security and she reminded me of the time her WhatsApp account was hacked.

I wouldn’t go into the details in this article but the hacker was able to send messages to her contacts, change her number on groups, and even used her DP on the new number, can you beat that? All these were done in the few minutes it took us to retrieve the WhatsApp account.

According to Statista, WhatsApp boasts of approximately 2 billion users monthly. This makes it the most popular messaging platform in the world.

With 2 billion monthly users, it goes without saying that WhatsApp is a soft target for hackers whose primary aim is to retrieve sensitive information for immediate or future use, and impersonate users.

WhatsApp knows security is very important because hackers are always looking for unprotected accounts to “devour” so they have put things in place to ensure your conversations remain private.

Some of the things put in place out of the box include:

End to end encryption
WhatsApp automatically secures your conversations through end-to-end encryption

No backups on WhatsApp servers
Your conversations aren’t backed up by WhatsApp. The choice of backing up your conversations and where to back them up is entirely yours.

Just as WhatsApp has done its best to secure your conversations by default, there are things you have to do yourself if you want to further strengthen that security, 9 of them are outlined in this article.

1. Lock WhatsApp

It’s no news that we can lock specific apps on our phones, from messaging to social media, and people have done that for years but WhatsApp allows you to lock directly from inside the app and you don’t need to get a third-party app to do this.

How can I lock WhatsApp?

1. Launch WhatsApp
2. Tap the three dots on the top right corner of your app
3. Select Settings
4. Select Account
5. Select Privacy
6. Scroll down and select fingerprint lock
7. Turn on fingerprint lock
8. Confirm your fingerprint (the fingerprint used on your device)
9. It will display 3 options: “immediately”, “in 1 minute” or “in 30 minutes”.
10. Select your preferred option.
11. Turn on “Show content in notification” to preview WhatsApp content in notifications even when it’s locked.

That’s it! WhatsApp Locked!

2. View Once

You can send WhatsApp images and videos that disappear from chat after they are viewed once.

The image or video will not be saved on the recipient’s devices and it cannot be forwarded or shared in any way. This is WhatsApp’s equivalent of “For Your Eyes Only” documents.

If the photo or video is not viewed 14 days after it was sent, it will automatically expire and become inaccessible.

However, if the image or video is not viewed before you back up, the image or video can be restored from back up.

The downside is that you will not be able to view the image or video in your chats with the recipient.

How do I use View Once?

1. Launch WhatsApp
2. Open a chat
3. Tap Camera or Tap to select image from your device
4. Tap the View Once icon.
6. Send

Please note that a smart user can still keep the picture or video by taking a screenshot, screen recording or recording with another device before it disappears so, your “view once” can eventually become “view multiple times”

3. Disappearing Messages

This sounds like magic, doesn’t it?

Disappearing messages allow you to set the duration in which your message will be available to the recipient. After the set duration, the message disappears from chat.

This is similar to view once but unlike View Once, the messages can be viewed multiple times within the determined time frame.

Disappearing messages can only be activated for new chats, you can’t make existing chats disappear.

How do I turn on disappearing messages?

1. Launch WhatsApp
2. Tap the three dots on the top right corner of your app
3. Select Settings
4. Select Account
5. Select Privacy
6. Select Default Message Timer
7. Select the duration
8. Disappearing messages will be set to that duration for all new chats

4. Two-step Verification

Two-step verification gives you the option of entering your email address and a PIN as alternative means of verifying your identity.

This is one feature that virtually everyone talks about as it deals directly with the security of your WhatsApp account.

Apart from safeguarding your account, adding your email address allows you to reset two-step verification

How do I set up two-step verification?

1. Launch WhatsApp
2. Tap the three dots on the top right corner of your app
3. Select Settings
4. Select Account
5. Select Two-step verification
6. Select Enable
7. Enter a six-digit PIN
8. Confirm the six-digit PIN
9. Enter an email address (Skip if you don’t want to add one)
10. Confirm the email address
11. Select Save

5. Last Seen

With Last seen, you can tell the last time your contacts were active on WhatsApp, or if they’re online at the moment.

How do I hide Last Seen?

1. Launch WhatsApp
2. Tap the three dots on the top right corner of your app
3. Select settings
4. Select Account
5. Select Privacy
6. Select Last Seen
7. Select one of the three options below:
   Nobody (Hides your last seen from everyone)
   Everyone (Shows your last seen to everyone)
   My Contacts (Shows your last seen to your contacts)

6. Read Receipts

Whenever you send a message on WhatsApp, you see checkmarks.

A single grey checkmark indicates that your message was sent.

Double grey checkmarks indicate that your message was delivered to the recipient’s device but not opened yet (of course they could’ve read it using the preview feature in notifications.)

Double blue checkmarks indicate that your message was delivered and opened. This is the read receipt, it tells you that the recipient has read your message.

If the read receipt is turned off, your opened or read messages will display two grey checkmarks instead of blue so the sender doesn’t know if you’ve opened the message or not.

How do I turn off the read receipt?

1. Launch WhatsApp
2. Tap the three dots on the top right corner of your app
3. Select Settings
4. Select Account
5. Select Privacy
6. Turn off read receipt

7. Profile Photo and About Privacy

If you don’t want anyone to see your profile photo or about information, this is the feature for you.

This feature allows you to hide your profile photo and About information.

How do I hide my profile photo and about?

1. Launch WhatsApp
2. Tap the three dots on the top right corner of your app
3. Select Settings
4. Select Account
5. Select Privacy
6. Select Profile Photo
7. Select one of the three options below:
   Nobody (Hides your last seen from everyone)
   Everyone (Shows your last seen to everyone)
   My Contacts (Shows your last seen to your contacts)

To hide your about information, follow the first five steps above, select About in step 6 and continue

8. Status Privacy

By default, WhatsApp status can only be viewed by people on your contact list and not everyone but even with this, WhatsApp now allows you to further customize this feature by allowing or excluding specific contacts from viewing your status.

How do I hide my WhatsApp status?

1. Launch WhatsApp
2. Tap the three dots on the top right corner of your app
3. Select Settings
4. Select Account
5. Select Privacy
6. Select Status
7. Select one of the three options below:
   My Contacts (Shows your status to everyone on your contact list)
   My Contacts Except (Shows your status to all your contact except the one you exclude here)
   Only Share with (Allows you to specify the contacts who can view your status)

9. Group Privacy Settings

By default, anyone can add you to a WhatsApp group. You can, however, change the settings to stop people from adding you to groups without your consent.

How can I change my group Privacy Settings?

Read our article on how to stop people from adding you to WhatsApp groups without your consent.

Kindly share your experiences with WhatsApp security in the comments section.

‘Kayode Abiola is a web developer, digital marketer and SEO strategist.