Spam Alert: CashNoCash, WhatsApp video-calling and iPhone’s video link

The digital world has its own charms and temptations for everyone, literally everyone. However, this love for social networking, business networking, and other digital gorging comes with some risks and vulnerabilities.

Our busy schedules, packed working hours often make us ignore small details and leave us vulnerable to what we know as spams. Spam is an unsolicited message sent over the Internet, typically to large numbers of users, for the purposes of advertising, phishing, spreading malware, etc.

Over the past week, three different kinds of spams have been reported, all with malicious intent to hack into your personal devices and steal valuable information.

Cashornocash.com

Let’s get started with cashornocash.com. While cashnocash.com (Read carefully, there is no ‘or’) is a real website, cashornocash.com is a fake site to insert malware into your phone.

The post-demonetization situation has ushered in a state of uncertainty and confusion for many people. So to help people with their cash or ATM related queries, Manjunath Talwar and Abhijit Khasnis launched cashnocash.com to help cash-strapped citizens locate the nearest functioning ATM, bank branch or post office.

Taking advantage of the same situation, many spammers are coming up with similar looking fraudulent websites that claim that they can tell you the status of cash in ATMs.

Don’t fall prey to such hackers. Stay alert, stay safe.

WhatsApp video calling

WhatsApp’s launch of its much awaited video-calling feature was also an opportunity in disguise for spammers to let loose their devil mind.

Shortly after the feature was introduced, many WhatsApp users began receiving an invitation link for the same. The spam message read, "You're invited to try WhatsApp Video Calling feature. Only people with the invitation can enable this feature".

On clicking the given link, one is directed to a web page to enable the new feature. The page has been designed with great precision to look completely genuine. And when you click on the 'enable' tab, you will be directed to a new page which requires user verification. You would then be asked to share and invite four other friends to enable this feature through the same link.

All these clicks are actually meant to expose you to spammers, making you extremely vulnerable to hacking.

The correct way to enable video calling feature is to update your WhatsApp app through your Google Play Store or Apple Store. As soon as it is updated, the feature will be automatically enabled.

iPhone malicious video link

Discovered by EverythingApplePro, there is a malicious link which, when loaded, causes any iOS device to freeze completely.

The link connects to an MP4 video that is opened in Safari and which appears to be corrupted, causing what seems to be a memory leak, eventually taking full processing power and freezing the device.

The only workaround is hard reboot the device to get the device back in working condition. On models older than the iPhone 7, users will need to hold down the power button and Home button at the same time to hard reboot the smartphone. On the iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus, users will need to long press the Home button and the volume down key simultaneously.

Though Apple will surely fix the bug in the next update, but for the moment, just make sure that you don’t click on the link if you receive it in your inbox.