Your private WhatsApp group chats are on Google search and Facebook knows about it

WhatsApp is one of those instant messenger apps that has garnered millions of users in just a few years and has managed to maintain its lead in the ‘Most downloaded apps’ section across platforms. Although it is a part of Facebook, over the years it has successfully won the trust of users by keeping its chats ‘encrypted’. A small message in a new chat window even shows that the message is encrypted. But how secure are they really? The questions raises because a few hours ago a report from Vice revealed that it is possible to gain access to private chat groups (content, members and their contacts) on WhatsApp by a simple Google Search. Yep, that’s right.

And Facebook knew about it since months.

If you aren’t aware, private chat groups on WhatsApp are usually accessible through an invite code (the URL) that is sent by the group creators or admins. But as per the report, Google seems to be indexing those URLs (at least some of them) and showing then in search results. This gives anyone the access to those URLs and join the private group.

Reverse app engineer Jane Manchun Wong also tweeted that some 470,000 group invite links have been indexed by Google.