What'sapp..secure??

I've never used whatsapp and am not sure if it hooks into the browser autocomplete/autofill/predictive text. I suspect that's what happened.
Has she ever entered her SS# on the PC or her phone in any way? Say she did her taxes or some form for school that required her SS#. It could simply be stored in the autocomplete/autofill cache.

 

That's very strange. Even if WhatsApp wasn't secure. Even if it was hacked, by what vector did her SS# get into the system?

 

In addition to this, the only other way is voice text. It had to be typed in or spoken in.
Can she reproduce the action and take a screenshot? If shared here, all I need to see is the dialog box. The SS# can be blurred or blocked.

 

That's... unsettling.

My first thought was predictive text or some kind of autofill pulling from saved personal info, but if she's truly never entered her SSN on that device, that's a head-scratcher.

Do you know if this happened on an iPhone or Android? And was she typing in Messages, a browser, or somewhere else? That might narrow down whether it's keyboard-related, autofill, or something else.

 

WhatsApp is an interesting clue. My next suspect would be the keyboard rather than WhatsApp itself—Gboard, Samsung Keyboard, or whatever she's using.

I'd still be curious whether the SSN was the suggested text above the keyboard, or if it actually inserted itself into the message. Those are two very different things.

If it was a suggestion, I'd be looking at keyboard history, autofill, or even clipboard history. If it actually typed itself... that's a little more eyebrow-raising.

The fact that it happened in WhatsApp makes me think it's less likely to be Android itself and more likely to be one of these:

• Gboard/Samsung Keyboard learning from clipboard or saved data.
• Android's Autofill service (Google, Samsung Pass, etc.).
• A clipboard manager if one is installed.
• Something copied in the past that the keyboard decided was a "helpful" suggestion.

I still wouldn't expect an SSN to pop up out of nowhere, though. That's the weird part.