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 cyberattacks. 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 volume of unknown messages is also switched on.
When someone enables this option, two-step verification is turned on by default, along with security notifications that alert a user when the security code of someone they are chatting with changes. WhatsApp also restricts your last seen and online status, profile photo, about details, and profile links so they are visible only to your contacts. If you have this 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-style feature will be rolling out in the coming weeks and is particularly useful for journalists and public figures. In its description, Meta states that strict account settings are an optional security feature that, when enabled, reduces vulnerability to cyber attack by limiting functionality. Your account is locked to more private settings, and your chats with people outside your contacts will have limitations.
Users can turn on this setting by going to Settings, then Privacy, then Advanced, and finally turning on Strict Account Settings. Meta noted that users can only change this setting from their primary device and not from a companion platform like WhatsApp for Web or Windows.
The timing of this rollout follows a lawsuit that accuses Meta of making false claims about WhatsApp security protections. The lawsuit alleges that the company stores, analyzes, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly private communications. WhatsApp head Will Cathcart rejected these claims, calling it a no-merit, headline-seeking lawsuit.