WhatsApp now warns you when someone's trying to hijack your account

Meta announced a sweeping expansion of its anti-scam features, deploying new artificial intelligence (AI) tools across its major apps, such as Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp, to protect users from increasing fraud attempts.

To curb fraud, the company also removed over 159 million scam ads globally in 2025. Among them, 92% were those who were taken down before any user reported them.

In addition to this, Meta disabled 10.9 million accounts on Facebook and Instagram that were linked to criminal scam centres.

In the new update, WhatsApp is launching device linking warnings to help users identify suspicious linking requests. The feature will display the source of suspicious requests to help users avoid scams where fraudsters trick users into linking their accounts to external devices through fake QR codes or voting schemes.

“This gives you the chance to pause and reconsider before it happens,” Meta states in its announcement.

Beyond WhatsApp, Meta has also introduced advanced safety features in its other social media apps.

Facebook is testing friend request alerts that flag accounts with few connections or mismatched location information, assisting users in recognizing potential impersonators before engaging.

Messenger is also running AI scam detection to flag suspicious chat patterns such as fake job offers.