Your Private WhatsApp Groups, User Profiles Are Visible On Google Search - TechnW3
Highlights:-
WhatsApp groups are now appearing on Google Search, along side user profiles and their profile images through search results
WhatsApp has allowed the indexing of group chat invites which is displaying private groups on search results
With clear access to the links to hitch a talk , this puts people within the groups vulnerable as anyone can join and see who all are on the texting platform
Recently, WhatsApp users round the world got the shock of their life once they saw the updated terms and privacy policy. This new update would allow the app to share user data with the parent company Facebook.
However, the news today is even more astonishing, as WhatsApp groups are now appearing on Google Search, along side user profiles and their profile images through search results.
This was first reported by Gadgets 360 (via cybersecurity researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia). Basically, anyone could search for a specific WhatsApp group by simply checking out it on Google.
WhatsApp has allowed the indexing of group chat invites which is displaying private groups on search results. With clear access to the links to hitch a talk , this puts people within the groups vulnerable as anyone can join and see who all are on the texting platform.
The issue apparently isn’t new. In 2019, WhatsApp experienced something similar but was reportedly fixed last year before the difficulty grew. consistent with reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong, this issue was fixed by adding the ‘noindex’ meta append chat invite links and this was followed on future generated group links too. However, the difficulty now seems entirely different.
Cybersecurity researcher Rajaharia has revealed that the messenger hadn’t included a robots.txt file (a file to manage program crawlers) particularly for its web interface -- chat.whatsapp.com.
This robots.txt file is additionally missing for the api.whatsapp.com subdomain which, consistent with the report, a bit like group chat invites indexing, makes user profiles accessible on Google, with the program indexing over 5,000 profile links, allowing anyone to speak with a user or gain access to their cell number or profile image.
A WhatsApp spokesperson said in a politician statement, "Since March 2020, WhatsApp has included the "noindex" append all deep link pages which, consistent with Google, will exclude them from indexing. we've given our feedback to Google to not index these chats. As a reminder, whenever someone joins a gaggle , everyone therein group receives a notice and therefore the admin can revoke or change the group invite link at any time.”
“Like all content that's shared in searchable, public channels, invite links that are posted publicly on the web are often found by other WhatsApp users. Links that users wish to share privately with people they know and trust shouldn't be posted on a publicly accessible website.”
Source: indiatimes.com
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