Overview
- The feature is rolling out over the coming weeks and can be enabled via Settings > Privacy > Advanced on a user's primary device.
- Once turned on, WhatsApp locks multiple controls to their most restrictive levels, blocking media and attachments from unknown senders, disabling link previews, silencing calls from unfamiliar numbers, and restricting group invitations.
- Additional protections include limiting profile visibility to contacts, enforcing two-step verification by default, routing calls through WhatsApp servers, and surfacing security code change alerts.
- WhatsApp says the mode is intended for at-risk users such as journalists and public-facing figures and is optional, trading some convenience for stronger defenses.
- Meta also disclosed a backend shift to Rust for media-handling libraries to reduce memory-safety exploits, and researchers from Citizen Lab and Access Now publicly welcomed the move as part of a broader trend alongside Apple’s Lockdown Mode and Android’s Advanced Protection.