Warning about WhatsApp skin sharing scam

[AuchanX]

As security is being improved, scammers are discovering new scam methods. We have all heard about phishing, keylogger scams. Recently, another scam method has taken a scary form. It is the WhatsApp skin mirroring scam. I don't know if there is a thread already opened as a warning about this.

How WhatsApp screen mirroring scam works

The fraudster convinces his victim to share his skin with them by offering various tempting offers or by falsely identifying himself as an employee of a trusted organization. While sharing the skin, the fraudster can see the victim's skin directly. If a banking account or wallet is logged in or an OTP is typed, the fraudsters can see it and immediately do fraudulent work. Read this to know in depth and be careful.

Those who don't really know about the skin share mirroring fraud.  For them, if the fraudster's goal is to empty your bank account or your crypto wallet, then he may force you to share your screen by saying that he is providing technical help through a video call on WhatsApp or by giving you a tempting offer. And if you are not aware, your wallet may become empty due to your mistake. Even your Bitcointalk account may end up in the hands of the fraudster. Because fraudsters can steal everything by looking at the saved password on your screen, or the sign-in confirmation code that comes in your email.

So do not give a screen share to a stranger. Never share your OTP with anyone. If someone asks for an OTP on the phone or in a chat, it is definitely a scam. Because a trusted organization will never ask for your OTP. Turn off screen share when logging into important accounts or wallets.

[348Judah]

I know of the way some organizations make requests for a video call, demand for user identity and other means of identification as it may allows, but I don't think it's being professional to ask for a screen share while doing a video call, no reputable organization will request for that from us, because it will be aimed at intruding into our privacy as we may do some other functions while using the phone forgetting that we are on screen share and exposed ourselves without being conscious, I warned again, no reputable organization or company should demand a screen share from you.

[Royal Cap]

Well I have never heard of such scams before, but I have heard of fake PayPal or fake Microsoft subscription scams. They do the same thing as you said in the post, but they do it on a computer or laptop. That is, they ask you to share your screen with them through Any Desk and they take control of your PC and take all the money in your bank account. I think this is exactly what is happening with mobile device users these days. However, I think no official of any reputable company or bank will ever ask for permission to share your screen. Another thing is that scammers sometimes ask you to install Any Desk software on your mobile, I would say you should never do this. Because it is a screen sharing app, which gives the other user control over all your devices.

[Bitcoin Smith]

I guess you are talking about Screen Sharing.

Asking for screen sharing is common when you work on remote job or doing an interview or something just to make sure that you are not cheating in any way but one must be stupid if they use their primary device where they have their crypto wallets installed or their banking apps or contain private images and videos.

FYI, even with screen sharing some apps will not let the other person to see what's in the screen for example if you open banking app while sharing your screen the other person will see just a blank screen.

[macson]

We need to be careful when giving others authority to control our devices through screen sharing. They may misuse this access to take personal data, install malicious software, or access sensitive files on our devices.

If it is not necessary, it is best to avoid sharing your screen with others and letting them control your device. Do not be too quick to trust people who claim to be customer support or claim to be able to help fix your technical problems remotely. Get into the habit of solving the problem yourself first and do not trust anyone to access your device for any reason.

[Marvelockg]

I know of the way some organizations make requests for a video call, demand for user identity and other means of identification as it may allows, but I don't think it's being professional to ask for a screen share while doing a video call.

except you are someone that is desperate to land a gig, it is always best that you know what is ethically right and abide by it regardless of the person you are holding the meeting with. a video call like you said is becoming a norm for most organizations but outside of that, sharing of screen should be completely out of the scenario because at a time like this, it is very easy to hack into your system through that means.

if for any reason you are to share your screen with anyone, it is best that you minimize other screens that have sensitive information about you and ensure that only the ones that are needed in the meeting is opened. again, you can not be too careful enough so, it is best to ensure that your device are well protected such that it becomes hard for it to be easily compromised or hacked into by any means.

[Hyphen(-)]

So do not give a screen share to a stranger. Never share your OTP with anyone. If someone asks for an OTP on the phone or in a chat, it is definitely a scam. Because a trusted organization will never ask for your OTP. Turn off screen share when logging into important accounts or wallets.

This scam is something I don’t regard as a big scam because if you are good in protecting your privacy through 2FA in your WhatsApp account, your account will be hard to get compromised because if you have good knowledge on how to protect your account not only on WhatsApp, you will never share your OTP anyone regardless of where you know or meet them. Let’s be careful and know the type of messages we replied to, scammers are getting wiser everyday, they are coming with new methods of stealing your data, and we are responsible of keeping our data safe, WhatsApp or any platform can’t come and keep them safe for us since we had the chance to strengthen our security.

[Bryan jessy]

This thread reminds me of an incident,  few days ago, a strange contact chatted me up and forwarded me a list of offers, claiming he works in an organization that never existed, and that their goal is to help people who are in need of financial help.
So he said he was going to send me 300k to start up a business, and that I will have to pay before he could help me register and activate my account, not just that he kept calling me on video call, but I never picked because I knew he was a total scam, that is their new scheme now, let's be guided.
 

[Jegileman]

So do not give a screen share to a stranger. Never share your OTP with anyone. If someone asks for an OTP on the phone or in a chat, it is definitely a scam. Because a trusted organization will never ask for your OTP. Turn off screen share when logging into important accounts or wallets.

What could even warrant one to share their screen when there is no need for that for someone that is literate enough to follow the prompt and instructions to solve a problem. This may be a new scam but anyone that is in the technological space for some time now will know that customer support don't use screen sharing method to solve a problem, that’s total infringement of privacy.

Scam attempts are numerous and the fact is that more new ones keeps coming everyday, you just need to stay informed and alerted of them. This may not be a big deal scam, but it is still worth sharing for the completely naive ones that can still make mistakes of sharing their OTP codes with strangers posing to be customer service of a company or platform you’re using. This is 2025, a scam attempts should be spotted easily from their manner of approach to stay safe.

[PX-Z]

You mean screen sharing?

Well, yes any kind of screen sharing app  can be used on frauds and scams if you don't know what feature is it don't just use it, that's simple. And every feature on such apps that could lead to abuse have always a reminder/note description or even have a secondary confirmation before you can use it, so always be vigilant.

[albon]

Many applications allow screen sharing and I think that Telegram also has this feature too.

Of course, nobody should share their screen with anyone, even strangers, because they may be recording the screen and can obtain sensitive information from the victim’s screen.

 Even more dangerous, in my view, are remote-control programs , as the attacker can access the victim’s entire device and can even control the keyboard and mouse. Therefore, we should not give blind trust to anyone, especially those who message us first to urge us to invest in a platform and tempt us with the offers they have.

[Porfirii]

I guess you are talking about Screen Sharing.

Asking for screen sharing is common when you work on remote job or doing an interview or something just to make sure that you are not cheating in any way but one must be stupid if they use their primary device where they have their crypto wallets installed or their banking apps or contain private images and videos.

FYI, even with screen sharing some apps will not let the other person to see what's in the screen for example if you open banking app while sharing your screen the other person will see just a blank screen.

When I read the title I thought the OP was going to talk about something definitely different...

The thing with screen sharing/mirroring is that, if you're asked to accept it, it is quite obvious that you shouldn't allow it if you aren't in a work context where you are the one who was interested in sharing your screen with someone else. If you are the kind of person who accepts unsolicited petitions you'll definitely be scammed until you learn the hard way, be it screen sharing petitions or different ones.

The real problem would be that, because of an infection, you shared your screen without noticing it. I'm glad to hear that for security reasons banking apps and the like show a blank screen when you share your screen, but I'm not sure whether this would work in a more sophisticated attack like the one I mentioned.

[HONDACD125]

Lol, I was about to search "What is WhatsApp Skin Sharing" on Google, and then I read the last paragraph, and then the posts under. Throughout the time I was reading the OP, I was confused about what he was actually talking about until I read the last paragraph, where he actually mentioned that he was talking about screen sharing.

This is not something new, in my opinion. Scammers have been using this trick for some time now, and it's very lame, if you ask me. Only those who are extremely foolish can fall for something like this, I mean, how can you allow someone to have access to your device's screen? Or even if it's not giving them access, it's still not appropriate to share your screen to someone you don't completely trust. We do that only with people that we know are trusted, and not with anyone else, whether it's customer service, or anyone.

Those who get scammed this way are those who are not fit to use technology, in my opinion.

[Bitcoin Smith]

~
The real problem would be that, because of an infection, you shared your screen without noticing it. I'm glad to hear that for security reasons banking apps and the like show a blank screen when you share your screen, but I'm not sure whether this would work in a more sophisticated attack like the one I mentioned.

Sophisticated attacks will not ask for the screen sharing, this is merely a social engineering scam done by an amateur scammer who may have no deep skills about the hacking of screen which is possible on many other ways and the victim will have no way of finding it. And we can find such experiment on the youtube itself of learning purpose.

And blank screen isn't much technical either, the banking apps even the streaming apps like Disney, Netflix have that restriction which is some kind of permission that revoke when it's running.

[PrivacyG]

Society got so used to over sharing things that they fall in to traps I can not imagine how it is possible to fall in.  We have to start becoming more cautious and paranoid.  Not as paranoid as I am maybe, but paranoid enough to have the common sense we once used to have.

Why would I share my screen with somebody else?  Particularly if I have sensitive information on my device.  Would the victims also share their home with a person pretending to be a trusted organization employee?  It makes no sense.  This is a scam likely for the elderly as a main victim target group.  I doubt this thread will help much if at all.

[tabas]

So do not give a screen share to a stranger.

This is it, never allow and permit a stranger to do this screenshare. And every help that you need should be asked and come from the official technical team of whatsapp or any platform that we're using. That's because if you're getting help from someone you don't even know who they are, you're giving them a favor by allowing them to penetrate to you and allow to initiate the scam that they're about to do.

[I_Anime]

I haven’t heard of such scam before . But to me I think something one can’t easily fall for especially those that are into privacy completely, cause I can’t share my screen with some organizations I don’t know and I don’t recieve OTP with my socials .

Yeah scammers are getting smarter that’s why you also have to be one step ahead of them , by researching of ways to improve your privacy and to secure your assets and data .

[taufik123]

Various types of fraud methods are developed and used by scammers to trap their cronies, I don't know if this is a new method maybe many will fall into the trap.
Because currently in my country alone the majority of WhatsApp users are almost evenly distributed, from old to young and even they don't really care about the security of their own data.
Even malware like invitations. The apk that is widely distributed today makes more victims trapped and finally all the data was successfully hacked and lost a lot of money because of the malware.

-sniip-
Why would I share my screen with somebody else?  Particularly if I have sensitive information on my device.  Would the victims also share their home with a person pretending to be a trusted organization employee?  It makes no sense.  This is a scam likely for the elderly as a main victim target group.  I doubt this thread will help much if at all.

There are many ways to do social engineering, and they do target people who are not tech-savvy, the elderly and those who are too stupid and unwary.
Some scammers pretend to be official parties related to the services used and the like and some also use insurance services as an initial disguise to get them interested and of course good news about a gift and such.