A messenger is a handy tool for chatting, sending photos and videos. With its help, one can do everything that a couple of decades ago could not even be imagined. Some use similar technologies to transfer personal and important data. Here the question immediately arises, “Can I trust this application?” After going through all the options, you can understand that the answer is unclear. Is there a secure messenger now? Let’s talk about this in today’s article.
How Does Encryption Work in Messengers?
For encryption to work, you need keys for all the participants. If the key is recognized, then all information will be sent directly to the attacker. To cope with this problem, end-to-end encryption (E2EE) has been invented. Its essence is as follows: when the messenger is running, a server provides the user with access to one’s account, personal correspondence, profile, and more. The server helps to receive and send messages. If the transfer is performed through end-to-end encryption, then the server does not know the secret keys, which means it cannot access the data.
Nowadays, end-to-end encryption is used by almost all messengers, but this is not always the case. Sometimes, data transmission can be easily intercepted by attackers. Or they will still be disclosed by the developers, for example, in cases when the government requires it.
Drawbacks of Popular Messengers
The Israeli company Cellebrite, the developer of the Cellebrite spyware, had managed to hack the Signal messenger. For years it was considered the most secure in the world, and now Cellebrite, which cooperates with law enforcement agencies in many countries, intends to “legally” provide officials with access to correspondence in this messenger. Thus, information stored in the messenger and considered protected may end up in the hands of law enforcement agencies in a completely decrypted form.
Before that, hackers have found that both of the most secure messengers, Signal and Telegram, save messages unencrypted on a user’s computer. Signal does this when updating versions of the desktop application, and Telegram simply stores all chats without encryption in the SQLite database, in which it is difficult to read them, but it is possible.
Everyone knows WhatsApp – more than 2 billion people use it around the world. Speaking of security, the app has been losing popularity. WhatsApp collects data such as phone numbers, contact data, and data collected through customer support. Logs, transaction data, and cookies are stored automatically. Due to the fact that WhatsApp uses Signal’s encryption protocol, it cannot be called safe as well.
The Most Secure Messenger
Despite a lot of nuances, each of the considered instant messengers can serve as an excellent application. Two-Step Verification is installed everywhere, making it almost impossible to hack your account. Still, if you don’t believe popular messengers, we recommend you consider LAN software. Such a network is more reliable than networks that are built on the basis of the two-tier architecture software.