Days after Meta was sued over alleged false privacy claims surrounding its chat app WhatsApp, the company has rolled out a new setting to protect users against cyber attacks.
The feature, called Strict Account Settings, adds restrictions like automatically blocking media and attachments from unknown senders, and silencing calls from unknown numbers. Under this setting, link previews are turned off, and the setting to block a high number of unknown messages is also switched on.
When someone turns this option on, by default, two-step verification is turned on along with security notifications that alert someone when the code of someone they are chatting with changes.
WhatsApp also restricts your last seen and online, profile photo, about details, and links on your profile are locked to only your contacts. If you have the new restrictive protection layer enabled, only your contacts (or pre-selected people from your contacts) can add you to groups.
The company said this “lockdown-styled” feature will be rolling out in the coming weeks and is useful for journalists and public figures.
“Strict account settings are an optional, lockdown-style security feature that, when enabled, reduces your vulnerability to cyber attack by limiting functionality. Your account is locked to more private settings, and your chats with others outside your contacts will have limitations,” the company’s description reads.
Users can turn on this setting by going to Settings > Privacy > Advanced and then turning on Strict account settings. Meta said that users can only change this setting from their primary device and not from a companion platform like WhatsApp for Web or Windows.
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The timing of the rollout comes as the WhatsApp lawsuit accuses Meta of making false claims about WhatsApp security protections. It alleges that the company “stores, analyzes, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications.”
WhatsApp head Will Cathcart rejected these claims and said it is a “no-merit, headline-seeking lawsuit.”
