Your privacy in WhatsApp chat groups are at risk, available on Google search

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Your privacy in WhatsApp chat groups are at risk, available on Google search
Your privacy in WhatsApp chat groups are at risk, available on Google search

New Delhi : In yet another shocker for the WhatsApp users, the privacy has been breached by the attackers; it has been learned that the invite links to personal WhatsApp group chats were indexed on a simple Google search on Friday. 

With this, anyone can join the private chat groups.

The WhatsApp chat groups listed on the Google search included some of the groups which were seen providing adult content not suitable for minors to watch.

Google, however, immediately took steps to ensure that the search was modified and the invite links were not disclosed to the world.

According to a report in Motherhood, it was found that private groups using specific Google searches and even joined a group intended for NGOs accredited by the UN and had access to all the participants and their phone numbers.

A journalist Jordan Wildon issued first red flag and tweeted, "Your WhatsApp groups may not be as secure as you think they are."

According to app reverse-engineer Jane Wong, Google has around 470,000 results for a simple search of “chat.whatsapp.com”, part of the URL that makes up invites to WhatsApp groups.

WhatsApp spokesperson Alison Bonny said, “Like all content that is shared in searchable public channels, invite links that are posted publicly on the internet can be found by other WhatsApp users.”

“The links that users wish to share privately with people they know and trust should not be posted on a publicly accessible website,” Bonny told a leading magazine.

Subsequently, Danny Sullivan, Google’s public search liaison, tweeted, “Search engines like Google & others list pages from the open web. That’s what’s happening here. It’s no different than any case where a site allows URLs to be publicly listed. We do offer tools allowing sites to block content being listed in our results.”