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Don’t get hacked; protect your WhatsApp account

08 October 2020 Photo Istock

Whatsapp security — It is important to be safe when using WhatsApp. Do not leave your phone unattended when you are not close by.

There are 2 billion WhatsApp users in the world, and 1,6 billion WhatsApp users access their accounts on a daily basis.

However, it is important to also be safe when using this popular communication tool.

According to Cobus van Jaarsveld, Assistant Director: Threat Detection, Investigations and Liaison in Protection Services, it does happen that people’s WhatsApp accounts get hacked; this is a serious violation of privacy.

“It means a third party now has unlimited access to your personal chats, information, media – and in some instances, they can also masquerade as you by deleting your chats, replying to your chats, and committing crimes. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of how harmful it can be to get hacked,” says Van Jaarsveld.

He adds: “Hackers can access your WhatsApp data by various means, e.g. via WhatsApp web or registering your number on another device.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) provided the following tips to prevent one’s WhatsApp from getting hacked:

• Log out from all computers that you see in the list under WhatsApp Web. This will stop hackers from further reading your chats. However, this should be done every time you use WhatsApp web.
• Do not leave your phone unattended when you are out.
• Lock all your apps to prevent unknown people from accessing your apps.
• Do not connect your phone to unknown Wi-Fi connections, as hackers can also use the unique MAC address to access all your WhatsApp chats.
• In case your WhatsApp has already been hacked, deactivate your account by emailing support@whatsapp.com. Your account will be automatically deleted if not accessed for 30 days.
• Enable two-step verification under your WhatsApp account settings. This will add an extra layer of security to the app.
• Lock WhatsApp. It is imperative to have the AppLocker that will help you lock your WhatsApp. While WhatsApp does not offer this application per se, you can download it and the app will facilitate the use of your WhatsApp with a password or PIN. This will help to prevent anyone who has access to your phone from accessing your WhatsApp account, since they will require a password to open it.

News Archive

Update on the Review of the Language Policy of the UFS

2015-11-26

On 5 June 2015, the Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) mandated Management to conduct a review of the Language Policy. The University Management Committee (UMC) then established a Language Committee to undertake a comprehensive review of the existing parallel-medium policy and to make recommendations on the way forward with respect to the university's Language Policy.

The Language Committee has now completed its work and the review report and its recommendations were presented to the UMC, the Executive Committee of Senate (ECS), as well as the full Senate. Each of these bodies debated the report and its recommendations and the views of these various structures will be presented to Council on 4 December 2015.

Council will study the report of the Language Committee and deliberate on the recommendations and views of these different university bodies ahead of, and at its December 2015 meeting. At that meeting, Council will then decide whether or not to accept the findings and recommendations of the Language Committee.

Should Council decide that - having reviewed the committee report - a new Language Policy must be developed, it would then mandate that such a policy should be designed and presented to itself as the highest decision-making authority of a university. In that case, the new Language Policy would have to be presented again to the UMC and Senate for voting purposes and that vote would be formally presented to Council at one of its meetings in 2016. The Institutional Forum, a statutory body that represents all university stakeholders, would also at that point advise Council, per its mandate, on a new Language Policy.

In the event that a new Language Policy is accepted by Council in 2016, the earliest possible date for implementation would be January 2017.

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