Days after Meta was sued over alleged false privateness claims surrounding its chat app WhatsApp, the corporate has rolled out a brand new setting to guard customers in opposition to cyber assaults.
The function, referred to as Strict Account Settings, provides restrictions like routinely blocking media and attachments from unknown senders, and silencing calls from unknown numbers. Beneath this setting, hyperlink previews are turned off, and the setting to dam a excessive variety of unknown messages can be switched on.
When somebody turns this selection on, by default, two-step verification is turned on together with safety notifications that alert somebody when the code of somebody they’re chatting with modifications.
WhatsApp additionally restricts your final seen and on-line, profile photograph, about particulars, and hyperlinks in your profile are locked to solely your contacts. In case you have the brand new restrictive safety layer enabled, solely your contacts (or pre-selected folks out of your contacts) can add you to teams.
The corporate stated this “lockdown-styled” function can be rolling out within the coming weeks and is helpful for journalists and public figures.
“Strict account settings are an non-obligatory, lockdown-style safety function that, when enabled, reduces your vulnerability to cyber assault by limiting performance. Your account is locked to extra personal settings, and your chats with others outdoors your contacts may have limitations,” the corporate’s description reads.
Customers can activate this setting by going to Settings > Privateness > Superior after which turning on Strict account settings. Meta stated that customers can solely change this setting from their main gadget and never from a companion platform like WhatsApp for Internet or Home windows.
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The timing of the rollout comes because the WhatsApp lawsuit accuses Meta of constructing false claims about WhatsApp safety protections. It alleges that the corporate “shops, analyzes, and may entry nearly all of WhatsApp customers’ purportedly ‘personal’ communications.”
WhatsApp head Will Cathcart rejected these claims and stated it’s a “no-merit, headline-seeking lawsuit.”
