WhatsApp hacked ?

[fizzypop100]

My elderly mum is upset because she opened a message from someone in the family and a pornographic picture appeared.. How has the senders account been hacked? I thought WhatsApp was encrypted and safe ?

What makes you think they've been hacked?

More likely they sent it to her by mistake.

The name is misspelt by one letter. It's obviously been hacked.
The message was asking the recipient to look at a photograph

Anything can be hacked.

If the name is misspelled, then it's not from the family member. Your mother opened a message from a random number. No hacking required.

Both my both kids accounts got hacked at Christmas, I can phone them and their phone doesn't ring 🤔, their photos got changed to random photos from Google (I reverse searched the image).
I messaged WhatsApp and they said that they must have given out a verification code to do so which I know they hadn't.
I got them new SIM cards as I didn't feel comfortable if something that 'cannot be hacked and is encrypted and safe, even WhatsApp cannot see your messages' was and they passed they blame so easily.

If its come from a different name then presumably the number is different to that of your family member. In that case nothings been hacked. She's been sent spam

I mean if the name is spelled incorrectly, clearly it’s not hacked?

The photo on the profile picture is one that the family member has used before. It's a picture of his young son on holiday. But it's not been sent by family! So how can someone do that ?

Anyone can set any name and photo on WhatsApp, which sounds like what's happened here. It's someone impersonating that family member, but it's not hacked. If they click the info on the person they'll be able to see the number it's actually come from.