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WhatsApp links that lead to closed groups can be found with a simple Google search — a major security flaw revealed by DW last week. Following social media outrage, the links were removed from Google’s search results.

Despite the removal, however, publicly-available internet archives are still storing the information, as security researcher Lav Kumar has found out. He gathered and organized over 60,000 unique links, which can still be found on multiple websites.

Of the 1,000 randomly selected links DW tested, 427 were active chat links. Even without actively joining a group, its title, description, image and creator's phone number are available for all. However, upon entering a group, it is possible to also see the phone numbers of up to 256 participants, as well as other information, and adding these numbers to one's contacts can reveal their names in the app.

"We show all numbers in groups for people's safety that way they know who will receive their messages," WhatsApp told DW in response.