Something weird happened in my neighborhood where a bunch of people were suddenly phished/hacked through WhatsApp and its SMS-based authentication. My girlfrie

Something weird happened in my neighborhood where a bunch of people were suddenly phished/hacked through WhatsApp and its SMS-based authentication. My girlfriend must have clicked a link in a text message that gave an adversary control over her WhatsApp and locked her out of it. That person then requested money from her friends and started phishing her contacts through groups--they didn't have actual access to her contacts. She was on Android and was able to recover her account and we set up 2FA. Her friends were not so lucky, many of those with iPhones apparently had to change phone numbers to make it stop. I don't understand why but I also couldn't see their phones. Anyhow, I encouraged people to give Signal a try. It at least doesn't send links that can hand over your account by text.