App researchers report that WhatsApp group invites are searchable online

Recently, the journalist Jordan Wilton has alleged that the links that invite users to private WhatsApp groups have been indexed by Google and are thus now searchable online. The app reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong has confirmed this, claiming that relatively elementary search terms bring up about 400000 of these links.

WhatsApp itself claims that this is only because the links had been shared publicly; however, Wong points out that the proper configurations could easily have prevented this. The situation may be a considerable blow to the Facebook-owned company, which prides itself on its data security and resulting integrity of the chats it supports.

However, it now seems that anyone using the necessary terms could gain access to private groups within the app, which may also enable them to view other sensitive data such as names or phone numbers. However, WhatsApp has yet to address these issues via its official channels.