A bug on WhatsApp leads to the exposure of 500,000 private conversations on Google?
Maybe you know it or one, but apparently the exchanges made on the WhatsApp messaging service are indexed by search engines.
That is, Google, Bing, brave etc… This of course allows you to access an often private conversation from these (search engines). Not only can you access WhatsApp's private conversations via the search engine, it is also possible to identify the different participants in these conversations with of course free and full access to their phone number.
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We know that on the WhatsApp app it is possible to engage in private or public conversations through the creation of Groups. However, when a group is created it is possible to generate a link allowing a person to access this group by simply clicking on it link. The real problem is that these public groups are indexed safely search engines.
The discovery was made by an American website called Vice, specialist in IT and COMPUTER security and other general terms. the process was not very complicated for the latter to discover this fact. they are simply to try to do research on Google, by there inserting terms that may refer to the group's name. The little experience vice showed that it was "about 470,000 group invitations" that would be accessible from Google. And this, without any protection.
Some people in their survey were able to gain access to Public WhatsApp groups from Google. Once in the group, you can have access to users' personal identifications, phone number and other profile information. "So just click on their profile, save the photo and search for an inverted image on Google to get a conclusive result on their first and last name," says an investigator Numerama, another site specializing in techs.
This problem has existed on WhatsApp since November 2019 Seems. it would seem that this is not a security breach but a programming related to the open nature of these public exchanges. It would seem that sharing functionality is the main cause. As a result, we do not might not be facing a security breach. According to the spokesperson social network WhatsApp, the fact that these links are referenced by the search engines is not something unusual. "Administrators WhatsApp groups can invite any user to join this sharing the link they have generated. Like all content are shared in public channels, invitation links that are posted publicly on the Internet can be found by other users WhatsApp."
In addition, the social network officials mentioned that it is possible to close public access to these focus groups. All it takes is for the administrators of the different groups to reset the access links, which will automatically obsolete the old ones that will no longer be useful even if they are referenced.
Now access an unlimited number of passwords:
