Many of the accounts were linked to criminal groups operating in South East Asia, the social media giant said.

Meta on Tuesday said it shut nearly seven million WhatsApp accounts linked to scammers in the first half of this year and is ramping up safeguards against such schemes.WhatsApp detected and banned more than 6.

This is also a great time to review your WhatsApp privacy settings. You can decide who’s allowed to add you to groups. This will instantly reduce your risk of getting pulled into random chats. Turning on two-step verification also adds an extra layer of security.