When opening a Whatsapp chat, the message “Your security number has changed” appears. What is it all about?
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“Your security number has changed” – harmless or an indication of hacker activity?
© Daniel Constante / Shutterstock.com
Unsuspecting, you open a chat in Whatsapp and suddenly receive a message with the content “Your security number has changed”. Has your chat partner been hacked? Not necessarily, because there could be other reasons behind the report.
What is the security number?
Every Whatsapp chat is end-to-end encrypted and for this reason is given a unique security number. In this way, it can be checked whether the end-to-end encryption is actually given (the actual key remains secret, of course, and has nothing to do with the number).
The security number is stored as a QR code or a 60-digit number in the contact information of the respective chat and can change under certain conditions or circumstances. This happens, for example, when …
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Whatsapp has been reinstalled for you or your chat partner,
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Whatsapp is used on another device or
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Your chat contact has changed their phone number on Whatsapp.
What does the Whatsapp message mean?
If one of the three cases is given, you do not have to worry about this Whatsapp message. Whatsapp then only wants to inform you that the security number for the respective chat has been changed, but that end-to-end encryption is still in place.
But be careful:
If none of the above applies and your chat contact is behaving differently (for example by sending strange links), you should be on your guard. Because in this case it can actually be that his account has been hacked and is being communicated from another device. Our tip: Protect yourself by calling your contact.
You can find even more WhatsApp tips here:
