u/wascherat

My girlfriend’s WhatsApp account was hacked. Today, I received a message from her asking for money. However, when we checked her WhatsApp, the message the hacker had sent was not visible in her chat history at all.

I also noticed that when I sent her a message, it did not arrive on her phone. But some times we were able to send messages to each other without a problem. I checked her WhatsApp settings and she had always had two-step verification enabled. Her own phone number was also still linked to the account.

We then set up an additional password, but I was still able to communicate with the hacker through her WhatsApp. I also noticed that her account sometimes showed as "online" even though WhatsApp was completely closed on her phone.

When we checked Linked Devices, there were no devices listed at all.

Eventually, we deleted WhatsApp from her phone and reinstalled it. It seems that this automatically logged the hacker out, because we have not seen any further suspicious activity since then.

Does anyone have any idea how someone could have gained access to her WhatsApp account despite all of this?

The strange things are:

• The messages sent by the hacker do not appear in her own chat history.
• There were no linked devices listed.
• Two-step verification was enabled the entire time.
• Her own phone number was still associated with the account.
• The account sometimes showed as online even though WhatsApp was closed on her phone.