How to spy on WhatsApp conversations without victim phone

Unfortunately, it’s a fact: the world is chock-full of snoopers, jealous boyfriends and overly apprehensive parents who would do anything and everything to know what their loved ones are doing when away, who they spend their time with and above all what. they speak when in the company of others or through messaging apps. It does not surprise me, therefore, that more and more users (including you!) Ask me every day if it is actually possible to keep an eye on the WhatsApp conversations of third parties without having to reach out to the “victim “‘s phone every time and how to prevent this happen. Given the situation, I decided to shed some light by writing a guide on the subject.

With today’s tutorial, in fact, I would like to clarify your ideas about any techniques that can be adopted to spy on WhatsApp conversations without a victim phone and in particular how you can preserve your privacy from “spies”. Let’s start immediately with certainty: it is not a chimera, spying on WhatsApp is a complex thing, but feasible. However, to succeed in the enterprise it is necessary that the potential attacker has at least once made contact with the cell phone of the person to be “monitored”. The victim’s phone, therefore, does not always have to be at hand. Once this first fundamental step has been carried out, having the phone on which the WhatsApp account to be monitored is in use is no longer necessary, at least not until the implementation of appropriate anti-spying practices.

To all this, however, it must be added that, fortunately, the messaging system in question is no longer as vulnerable as it once was. In fact, WhatsApp’s protection systems have been greatly strengthened over the past few months. Either way, never ever let your guard down! To find out more, read on.

Index

• Preliminary information
• How to spy on WhatsApp conversations without victim phone
  • Identity theft
  • Monitoring of wireless networks
  • Spy, anti-theft, parental control and access monitoring apps
• How to avoid spying on WhatsApp conversations without a victim phone

Preliminary information

Before getting to the heart of the guide, going to illustrate how to spy on WhatsApp conversations without a victim phone, it is my duty to provide you with some preliminary information about it, so as to allow you to have clear ideas on the matter.

We start from the fundamental assumption that WhatsApp is a sufficiently secure service thanks to the use of the end-to-end encryption system called TextSecure, consequently capturing messages traveling on its servers through “sniffing” (a technique that consists in capturing data that pass over a wireless network using special software, which I told you about in detail in my guide on the subject ) seems rather complicated.

The end-to-end encryption works with a pair of keys: there is a private key, which resides on the user’s smartphone and allows to decrypt messages received from the outside and there is a public key, which is shared with the interlocutor and is used by the latter to encrypt messages delivered to the other account and vice versa.

The WhatsApp servers act as intermediaries between the two keys, which receive encrypted messages and deliver them to the recipient’s device. Everything happens in real time and without the user having to do anything. For more information on this, you can consult my guide on how to encrypt WhatsApp.

However, since WhatsApp is a closed source software, so it is not possible to thoroughly analyze the code, unfortunately it is not possible to know for sure how messages are actually managed.

Still on the subject of end-to-end encryption, if you don’t know, I inform you that it was introduced on WhatsApp starting from November 2014, thanks to a collaboration between the team of the famous app and the developers of Open Whisper Systems.

However, some tests, such as the one carried out by Heise in April 2015, showed that end-to-end encryption was only used on the Android version of WhatsApp. In all other cases, an encryption system based on the RC4 algorithm continued to be used, functioning only on exit and considered no longer secure. To date, the situation has totally changed, as end-to-end encryption has been made available for all platforms on which WhatsApp can be used and covers all kinds of content.

Despite everything, there are other techniques that criminals can try to adopt to spy on WhatsApp, even if they are much more difficult to use and which, as I told you at the beginning of the guide, require a first direct contact with the victim’s mobile phone.

How to spy on WhatsApp conversations without victim phone

Having made the necessary clarifications above, I would say that we can get to the point and, therefore, find out how to spy on WhatsApp conversations without the victim’s phone. You will find listed below what are the main tactics exploited by the bad guys.

Identity theft

Identity theft is undoubtedly one of the most popular techniques for spying on WhatsApp conversations without the victim’s phone, or rather without having to constantly have the cell phone of the person or woman whom you intend to spy on .

This is the technique by which the attacker on duty can “deceive” WhatsApp by pretending to be another person and access, without permission, the conversations of the latter. To date, there is only one way to implement identity theft: MAC address cloning.

Don’t you know what I’m talking about? No problem, I’ll explain it to you immediately. The MAC address is a 12-digit code that uniquely identifies all devices capable of connecting to the Internet. It is also used by WhatsApp to verify the identity of users (together with the phone number), but with special applications it is possible to disguise it and deceive the application.

So, if an attacker installs some of these apps on their mobile phone (eg BusyBox and Mac Address Ghost for Android, which only work after unlocking the device via root, as I explained to you in more detail in my guide on how to clone WhatsApp ) and manages to find out the MAC address of the victim’s device (just go to the screen with the information in the device settings) can install a “cloned” version of WhatsApp and access his conversations.

Fortunately, this is a decidedly uncommon practice that requires a fair amount of technical preparation. Furthermore, at first the attacker must have the opportunity to tinker a lot with the victim’s phone: in a first phase to discover the MAC address of the device and then to read the confirmation SMS necessary to activate the copy ” cloned ”of WhatsApp on the other smartphone.

Until recently, another system adopted to spy on WhatsApp conversations without the victim’s phone consisted of using the Web version of the messaging service or the computer client, which I told you about in detail in my post on how to use WhatsApp on a PC , thanks to the function that allows you to stay connected, allowing the browser or program to store the user’s identity and access conversations without requiring a new scan of the QR code. To date, however, such a technique can no longer be considered valid, as notifications relating to access are sent and biometric identification is required.

Monitoring of wireless networks

Many people have asked me if it is possible to spy on WhatsApp conversations without the victim’s phone with applications that allow you to monitor all the data that passes over a wireless network (the so-called “sniffing”). The answer is no, at least no longer, based on what I explained to you in the passage at the beginning of the guide.

WhatsApp, therefore, is theoretically safe from monitoring Wi-Fi networks, but letting your guard down would be a serious, indeed a very serious mistake! So if you want to sleep even more peacefully, start using a VPN. If you don’t know what it is, it is a technology that allows you to browse online securely, encrypting your connection data and disguising your real location, via a virtual private network. There are many services of this type: among the most reliable and cheap I point out NordVPN (which I told you about in detail here ) and Surfshark, which work on all major devices and operating systems.

To avoid problems, I recommend that you avoid connecting to public Wi-Fi networks and make sure you are using the most up-to-date version – and therefore also the one that should be more secure – of the application. This is a very simple precaution that can nevertheless avoid encountering “trouble”. In this regard, you can read my guide on how to update WhatsApp.

Spy, anti-theft, parental control and access monitoring apps

There are numerous apps in circulation that allow you to monitor, control and locate smartphones from a distance. Many of them are completely free and have the ability to hide, that is, they do not appear on the phone’s home screen or on the screen with the list of all the apps installed on the device.

Such tools are born to allow the lawful monitoring of the user’s smartphone, but taking into account their operation, they can be exploited as a means to spy on WhatsApp conversations remotely without the victim phone, provided that the attacker has had the opportunity to put his hand at least once to the cell phone of the person who intends to monitor or who has persuaded the victim remotely to download and install the tool to spy on another’s WhatsApp, but passing them off as another type of content, perhaps by sending the relative link.

There are several apps that allow you to achieve this, as in the case of iKeyMonitor, one of the most popular spy applications that you can also try for free for a few days.

Furthermore, it must be said that anti-theft applications (those that allow you to locate lost mobile phones) and parental control services have such functions that they could be used to capture screenshots and monitor most of the activities on the smartphone, such as Qustodio, available both for Android and for iOS and Screen Time, also available for Android and iOS, which do not require advanced configurations and allow you to monitor and, if necessary, also to limit user activity.

I also point out that there are apps and online services that, using the public data of the well-known messaging service, allow you to monitor the hours of access to the service and that provide notifications relating to the activities carried out, all simply by typing the victim’s phone number. Sometimes they stop working, but when available they can be particularly useful for spying on others’ WhatsApp.

How to avoid spying on WhatsApp conversations without a victim phone

Based on what has been said in the previous lines, if you want to avoid being spied on WhatsApp conversations, it is essential that you put into practice some precautions, those indicated below, thanks to which you can manage your smartphone in a more conscientious way.

• Activate the screen lock on WhatsApp– not everyone is aware of it, but WhatsApp includes a feature that allows you to block access to the app by face or fingerprint and which turns out to be extremely to prevent other people from accessing their chats. To activate this function, go to the Settings> Account> Privacy> WhatsApp screen lock and move the switch to ON to activate the screen lock.
• Setting a secure PIN– A secure PIN can put most bad guys out of the game. For example, without accessing the main menu of the smartphone, it is not possible to install spy apps, for parental controls, etc. If you want to change the PIN on your smartphone, proceed as follows: if you use Android you can do it by going to the Settings> Security> Screen Lock of the device and selecting the PIN item (or Sequence, if you want to use a gesture instead of the code); if you use an iPhone you have to go to the Settings> Face ID / Touch ID and device code section and select the Change code item.
• Disable the display of SMS on the lock screen– by cloning the MAC address of the smartphone, an attacker could activate WhatsApp on his phone using his number. To do this, however, he should discover the verification code delivered via SMS to your mobile phone. By deactivating the display of SMS on the lock screen, it is possible to prevent this without first unlocking the smartphone. To do this, proceed as follows: if you are using Android go to the Settings> Security> Lock Screen> Device PIN section, set a PIN and choose to hide sensitive content; if you are using an iPhone go to the sectionSettings> Notifications> Device messages and uncheck the Lock screen item.
• Check for spy apps– if you suspect there are spy apps on your smartphone, go to the list of apps on your device and check which ones are in use. To do this, do this: if you are using Android go to the Settings> Apps> All device section and delete all suspicious apps, then go to the Settings> Security> Device administrators menu and take a look at the list of apps that have the permission to control the system and if among these there is any that you have not authorized yourself, uncheck its name and uninstall it; if you are using an iPhone, go to the Settings> General> iPhone Space section of your device and delete the apps you think may be spying on you, by pressing on their name and on the option Delete the app.
• Reactivate your account in case of deactivation– if someone activated WhatsApp on another mobile using your phone number, the service will stop working on your device. If you suddenly find yourself with the account deactivated, immediately report it to WhatsApp support by contacting assistance.

Warning: spying on WhatsApp without the permission of the legitimate account owner is a serious breach of privacy! This tutorial has been written for informational purposes only and I do not take any responsibility for the use that will be made of the indications contained in it.