WhatsApp adds range of huge new security features - here’s what they do

New tools should make it harder to take over accounts

(AFP via Getty Images)

WhatsApp has added a range of new security features, aimed at making it more difficult to take over other people’s accounts.

The features build on a focus on privacy and security from the Meta-owned app, which has argued that conversations should be as private and secure as an in-person conversation. Many of the features related to that aim have been focused on securing messages, such as adding end-to-end encryption.

The new tools however are focused primarily on securing the devices those messages are shown on. They are aimed at making it more difficult for attackers to take over accounts, by adding extra checks to ensure that people are who they say they are.

A new tool called “Account Protect” will be activated when people switch an account from an old to a new device, for instance. Users may receive an alert on their old device that asks them to verify they are really switching away from it – and receiving such an alert without warning could suggest that someone is trying to steal your account.

Another tool called “Device Verification” does much the same in the background, ensuring that people are not able to install malware to read through people’s messages. That feature works in the background, verifying people’s devices without them even being aware of it.

The final addition is a tool called automatic security codes, which build on existing tool that allows people to check that they are really talking to the person they believe they are chatting to. That can still be done manually but a version of it will also now happen automatically, adding a tool that will check whether the connection is secure.

WhatsApp said all the new features will be arriving “in the coming months”.