Without doubt, WhatsApp is the most popular instant messaging service available right now and millions of messages are sent each day. WhatsApp has been improving on features over the last couple of years. Now, the company has announced the availability of two-step verification for your accounts. Two-step verification on WhatsApp is an optional feature that adds more security to your account.
When you have two-step verification enabled, any attempt to verify your phone number on WhatsApp must be accompanied by the six-digit passcode that you created using this feature.
To Enable this feature, open WhatsApp > Settings > Account > Two-step verification > Enable. Once you enable this feature, you will be provided with an option to enter the email address. This is important as this email address will be used to send you a link via email to disable two-step verification in case you ever forget your six-digit passcode, and also to help safeguard your account. But as of now WhatsApp is not verifying the email address.
Important things to note on Two-Step Verification on WhatsApp:
- If you have two-step verification enabled, your number will not be permitted to reverify on WhatsApp within 7 days of last using WhatsApp without your passcode.
- After these 7 days, your number will be permitted to reverify on WhatsApp without your passcode, but you will lose all pending messages upon reverifying – they will be deleted.
- If your number is reverified on WhatsApp after 30 days of last using WhatsApp, and without your passcode, your account will be deleted and a new one will be created upon successfully reverifying.
- To help you remember your passcode, WhatsApp will periodically ask you to enter your passcode. There is no option to disable this without disabling the two-step verification feature.
So when you are enabling two-step verification, make sure you provide a valid email ID so that in case you forget passcode, you can easily reset using email address.
People should always turn two factor verification