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WhatsApp acquisition may have had a negative impact on the reputation of the company, it seems many users are planning to switch the service and a few of them have already done it. In our previous article, we have mentioned that why you should switch from WhatsApp to an encrypted Chat messaging service . Mobile messaging apps often used to deliver sensitive data or used for personal and corporate communications, so the data stored by the service provider should be encrypted end-to-end, which is not yet in the case of WhatsApp. There are many mobile messaging applications like Japan-based  Line , China's  WeChat , Korea-based  KakaoTalk , and Canada's  Kik , India-based  Hike  and many more, but they are not end-to-end encrypted messengers. Time is loudly announcing the need to shift to some alternates which provides end-to-end encryption for communication between two devices and respect your Privacy. There are a number of solutions available...

In Brief Viber, the popular mobile messaging app announced Tuesday that it has added full end-to-end encryption for video, voice and text message services for its millions of users. Here, the end-to-end encryption means only you and the person you are communicating with can read the content, and nobody in between, not even the company and if court orders company to provide user data, they will get only the heaps of encrypted data. Viber is the latest messaging platform to join WhatsApp , Telegram , and Apple iMessage , who strengthened their default privacy features in recent times. Founded in 2010 and acquired by Japanese e-commerce titan Rakuten for $900 Million in 2014, Viber is currently being used by more than 700 Million users globally across Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and desktop, the company claimed in a blog post published today. The move comes just a couple of weeks after Facebook-owned Whatsapp messaging app implemented full end-to-end encryption by default ...

Good news for all Privacy Lovers!! Finally the wildly popular messaging app WhatsApp has made end-to-end encryption a default feature, stepping a way forward for the online privacy of its users around the world. WhatsApp , most popular messaging app with 600 Million users as of October 2014, has partnered with Open Whisper Systems to boost its privacy and security by implementing strong end-to-end encryption on all text messages. The strong end-to-end encryption here means that even Mark Zuckerberg himself can't pry into your conversations, even if asked by law enforcement officials. The app maker describe this move as the " largest deployment of end-to-end encryption ever ." The Open Whisper System is a non-profit software organisation started by security researcher Moxie Marlinspike, who is behind the development of TextSecure app used for encryption. Over the past three years, his team has been in the process of developing a 'modern, open source...

Facebook has begun rolling out end-to-end encryption for its Messenger app, thus making its users' conversations completely private. The end-to-end encryption feature, dubbed " Secret Conversations ," will allow Messenger users to send and receive messages in a way that no one, including the FBI with a warrant, hackers and not even Facebook itself, can intercept them. But, this new feature will currently be available only to a small number of users for testing. So if you are one of those lucky users, you will be able to send end-to-end encrypted Secret Conversations through your Messenger app. Rest of the Messenger users will get Secret Conversations feature later this summer or in early fall, the company wrote in a Facebook newsroom post published today. Sounds exciting, right? But, there's a catch: Your conversations on Messenger will not be end-to-end encrypted by default, like what WhatsApp and Apple are offering. Instead, Facebook will require ...

Just to have a good anti-virus protection app in your smartphone doesn't mean a complete Security. As Mobile Device Security is comprised of security of different features, such as: Data privacy and security features Permission restrictions for snoopy apps A blacklist for undesired calls An excellent backup capability, in case your smartphone gets deteriorated. As well as encryption functionality. Google's Android is a very flexible mobile operating system that can fulfill all these mobile device security challenges if you select the right security applications from Google Play Store. No doubt, Google Play Store has an abundance of suitable options, and it's quite difficult for you to select the ones that meet all your expectations. So, I decided to help you by making a short list of the best mobile device security applications that I always carry in my Android smartphone. Here are the best security apps you must have in your Android smartphone; have a look...

There are many labor-intensive tasks that the IT service desk carries out on a daily basis. None as tedious and costly as resetting passwords. Modern IT service desks spend a significant amount of time both unlocking and resetting passwords for end-users. This issue has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Causes of account lockouts and password resets End-user password policies, such as those found in Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS), typically define a  password age . The password age is the length of time an end-user can keep their current password. While  new guidance from NIST  recommends against the long-held notion of forced password changes, it is still a common and required security mechanism across other compliance standards and industry certifications such as PCI and HITRUST. When the password age is reached for the user account, the user must change their account password. It is generally prompted at the next login on their worksta...

Twitter has been adopting new trends at a snail's pace. But it's better to be late than never. Since 2013 people were speculating that Twitter will bring end-to-end encryption to its direct messages, and finally almost 5 years after the encryption era began, the company is now testing an end-to-end encrypted messaging on Twitter. Dubbed " Secret Conversation ," the feature has been spotted in the latest version of Android application package (APK) for Twitter by Jane Manchun Wong, a computer science student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. End-to-end encryption allows users to send and receive messages in a way that no one, be it an FBI agent with a warrant, hacker or even the service itself, can intercept them. However, it seems like the Secret Conversation feature has currently been available only to a small number of users for testing. So, if you are one of those lucky ones, you will be able to send end-to-end encrypted Secret Conversation thro...

WhatsApp is updating its messaging app so that every text message and voice call will be encrypted for the company's one billion users. Yes, Whatsapp has finally implemented full end-to-end encryption , as promised a year ago. This means, from now every message, image or voice call you made will be secured by end-to-end encryption so that only you and the person you're communicating with can read the content of the message, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp. In other words, this also means that WhatsApp would not be able to comply with any court order that demands access to the content of any conversation happens over its service. Starting today, you will see a notification on your WhatsApp conversation screen as your messenger becomes end-to-end encrypted, as shown in the screenshot. "Message you send to this chat and calls are now secured with end-to-end encryption. Tap for more info."  "This is because your messages are secured with a lock, ...

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, disclosed that it doesn't intend to roll out default end-to-end encryption (E2EE) across all its messaging services until 2023, pushing its original plans by at least a year. "We're taking our time to get this right and we don't plan to finish the global rollout of end-to-end encryption by default across all our messaging services until sometime in 2023," Meta's head of safety, Antigone Davis,  said  in a post published in The Telegraph over the weekend. The new scheme, described as a "three-pronged approach," aims to employ a mix of non-encrypted data across its apps as well as account information and reports from users to improve safety and combat abuse, noting that the goal is to deter illegal behavior from happening in the first place, giving users more control, and actively encouraging users to flag harmful messages. Meta had previously  outlined  plans to be "fully end-to-en...

The GSM Association (GSMA) has formally announced support for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for securing messages sent via the Rich Communications Services (RCS) protocol, bringing much-needed security protections to cross-platform messages shared between Android and iOS platforms. To that end, the new GSMA specifications for RCS include E2EE based on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol via what's called the RCS Universal Profile 3.0 . "The new specifications define how to apply MLS within the context of RCS," Tom Van Pelt, technical director of GSMA, said . "These procedures ensure that messages and other content such as files remain confidential and secure as they travel between clients." This also means that RCS will be the first "large-scale messaging service" to have support for interoperable E2EE between different client implementations from different providers in the near future. It's worth noting that Google's own implemen...

Cybersecurity researchers over the weekend disclosed new security risks associated with link previews in popular messaging apps that cause the services to leak IP addresses, expose links sent via end-to-end encrypted chats, and even unnecessarily download gigabytes of data stealthily in the background. "Links shared in chats may contain private information intended only for the recipients," researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk  said . "This could be bills, contracts, medical records, or anything that may be confidential." "Apps that rely on servers to generate link previews may be violating the privacy of their users by sending links shared in a private chat to their servers." Generating Link Previews at the Sender/Receiver Side Link previews are a common feature in most chat apps, making it easy to display a visual preview and a brief description of the shared link. Although apps like  Signal  and  Wire  give users the option to turn on/off l...

The GSM Association (GSMA), the governing body that oversees the development of the Rich Communications Services (RCS) protocol, on Tuesday, said it's working towards implementing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to secure messages sent between the Android and iOS ecosystems. "The next major milestone is for the RCS Universal Profile to add important user protections such as interoperable end-to-end encryption," Tom Van Pelt, technical director of GSMA, said . "This will be the first deployment of standardized, interoperable messaging encryption between different computing platforms, addressing significant technical challenges such as key federation and cryptographically-enforced group membership." The development comes a day after Apple officially rolled out iOS 18 with support for RCS in its Messages app, which comes with advanced features like message reactions, typing indications, read receipts, and high-quality media sharing, among others. RCS, an impro...

Joining the line with rival chat apps WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, and Signal, the Telegram instant messaging service has finally rolled out a much-awaited feature for the new beta versions of its Android app: Voice Calling . And what's interesting? Your calls will be secured by Emojis, and quality will be better using Artificial Intelligence. No doubt the company brought the audio calling feature quite late, but it's likely because of its focus on security — the voice calls on Telegram are by default based on the same end-to-end encryption methods as its Secret Chat mode to help users make secure calls. Unlike Signal or WhatsApp, Telegram does not support end-to-end encryption by default; instead, it offers a 'Secret Chat' mode, which users have to enable manually, to completely secure their chats from prying eyes. However, the voice calling feature in Telegram supports end-to-end encryption by default, enabling users to secure their chats in a way ...

Next time when someone sends you a photo of a cute cat or a hot chick on WhatsApp or Telegram then be careful before you click on the image to view — it might hack your account within seconds. A new security vulnerability has recently been patched by two popular end-to-end encrypted messaging services — WhatsApp and Telegram — that could have allowed hackers to completely take over user account just by having a user simply click on a picture. The hack only affected the browser-based versions of WhatsApp and Telegram, so users relying on the mobile apps are not vulnerable to the attack. According to Checkpoint security researchers, the vulnerability resided in the way both messaging services process images and multimedia files without verifying that they might have hidden malicious code inside. For exploiting the flaw, all an attacker needed to do was sending the malicious code hidden within an innocent-looking image. Once the victim clicked on the picture, the attacker coul...