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Management Assistance Program

iPhone Users Who Use Secure Text Messaging Apps Will See Improved Security Features (June 11, 2020)

Don’t worry. The powerful encrypted texting apps you may have been using have been working as they were supposed to work. Apps like WhatsApp and Signal have been great for sending secure encrypted text messages. The only requirement is that everyone must download and use the same app.

But even good tools can get better, and both WhatsApp and Signal have announced improvements related to storage of message threads securely. Here’s an explanation of upgrades to WhatsApp.

“Last month, the news emerged that the latest WhatsApp beta would finally extend end-to-end encryption to iCloud backups, with similar plans for Android also. This has been a massive vulnerability, backing up WhatsApp chats and media to iCloud has simple been storing a decrypted copy of your messaging database.”

Millions Of iPhone Users To Get This Stunning New Messaging Update on Forbes.com.

I have a hard time calling this a “massive vulnerability” as my iCloud backup is kept secure by Apple and there are lots of important items of information contained in it already. I assume this is written by someone concerned about Apple turning over information in response to a government subpoena. In that case, lawyers will appreciate that all the stored WhatsApp messages are encrypted with a password only they know.

Signal has announced a method to transfer its message data from one device to another without having to park the information on a cloud service to accomplish the transfer. This could be very handy when buying a new device, but that is only one of several upgrades and other security enhancement plans from Signal. Rather than recap everything here, I’ll just encourage you to read Millions Of iPhone Users To Get This Stunning New Messaging Update on Forbes.com.