The world of social media can be a great source of information. However, a lot of that information can also be fake so we must check how credible the source is. And this is true in case of news, apps and services that are sent across as forwarded messages, and even updates.
Speaking of updates, there is the latest hoax about ‘WhatsApp Gold’ that you should know about. Users have received messages on the popular messaging app telling them to download the ‘WhatsApp Gold’ update. However, if you receive this message don’t fall for it, because it is actually a malware that will infect your smartphone.
And there is a good probability that you will receive the message because it has already been circulated on a massive scale and it very convincingly makes people believe that this is a secret update with new features. A lot of people did actually download it thinking that this is true.
We should mention that WhatsApp never rolls out any secret updates. All of the updates first come to its beta version, get tested for a few days with select users and then gets rolled out to the masses. You can enrol yourself in WhatsApp beta programme to get all the new updates before anyone else does, or you can check with a beta user if an update that is being spoken about has any credibility or not. That way, you’ll be safe from such hoaxes in future.
Coming back to the ‘WhatsApp Gold’ message, the people behind this scam have included a link in the message that they have circulated and asked people to click on it to download the new upgraded version of WhatsApp. But on clicking it, users actually download the virus on their devices. The hoax message also includes the word ‘Martinelli’, which is basically an Italian surname.
It is also worth noticing that a number of WhatsApp users are aware that this message should not be downloaded and have started spreading awareness messages on the app about the same to warn other users to not fall for it.
We should say that it was a good decision on WhatsApp’s part to restrict the number of forwards to only five times. Although this message is still being circulated widely, the situation would have been very uncontrollable had this step not been taken by the Facebook-owned messaging app.
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