How A Student Hacked Teachers WhatsApp

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How A Student Hacked into Teachers WHATSAPP Account?

A teacher from Kerala noticed that her WhatsApp account was logged out soon after an online class. Knowing this, she lodged a complaint with cyberpolice. Police cracked the case and found out that the culprit was her student, studying in high school, who logged into the teacher’s account.

The technique used by the student was simple. The teacher was using a screen-share app in her phone during the class. So the students were able to see the screen and also the pop-up notification alerts coming into the phone. The ‘culprit’ student then tried to login WhatsApp with teacher’s number in his phone. And the OTP for verification came as pop-up alert in the teacher’s phone which was visible for all the students. Thus the student easily logged in to the account. The teacher did not have two-step verification on the phone and did not have a password.

The account in teacher’s phone got logged out as WhatsApp does not allow simultaneous use on two different devices. After the police cracked the case and found out the culprit is the student, the teacher withdrew the complaint.

PRECAUTIONS to avoid hacking
With some simple steps, one can avoid getting hacked during screen-sharing. Disable the notification alerts when sharing the screen with others.

Also enable two-step verification for WhatsApp login, so that an additional password is required to login to WhatsApp through other devices.

Soon after screen-sharing, make sure that OTPs or verification messages were not received during the time.

Adv (Dr.) Prashant Mali
Cyber & Privacy Lawyer & Author

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