Thousands of WhatsApp group chats exposed in google search results
BUZZ fam, your WhatsApp group may not be as private as you think.
Experts have warned users that their phone numbers, and conversations could be exposed in Google search results.
You see BUZZ fam, WhatsApp groups are normally only available to join by direct invitation within the app, or via the creation of a digital invite link that can be shared anywhere.
And apparently, WhatsApp did not configure these links to request that they not get indexed by search engines like Google.
So because of this, around 470,000 such invite links had been added to Google’s index. This allows them to be pulled up with simple search terms.
And anyone finding a group link online could join the chat, giving them access to confidential information.
However, when WhatsApp identified the issue, it configured its chat site to request that search engines like Google do not index invite links.
But it has still left your group vulnerable to other search engines like Bing, Yandex and DuckDuckGo. They can also still be published elsewhere on the internet.
WhatsApp users who fear that their group chats may have been exposed can reset their group invitation links via the in-app group settings.
