Happy Friday the 13th. In honor of all the governmental and law enforcement agencies that want to deny the privacy and security of encrypted communications to the general public, today we will be looking at encrypted messaging apps for your smart phone.
When the bad guys can break into your digital assets and steal your information with impunity, encryption is a necessity. Encryption is the lock on your data. I am a proponent of encrypting everything. My Second Amendment friends like to point out that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. This is true of encryption too. If the United States were to limit encryption in some way or reduce its effectiveness, the world would just flock to encryption products available in other countries.
Enough with the soapbox. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a great comparison chart that stacks 37 apps against each other and ranks them on seven criteria. Let’s look at two excellent messaging apps, the popular WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, and the lesser known Signal. Either one of them will let you message securely. The drawback for any of these products is that for the message to be secure, both the sender and the recipient need to be using the app.
I’ve been using Signal, which has a perfect 7 of 7 score. What’s nice about Signal is that when I send a Signal message to someone not on Signal, it is sent unencrypted. Other apps with perfect scores include ChatSecure + Orbot, Pidgin, Silent Phone, Silent Text, Telegram, and TextSecure,
WhatsApp has a 6 of 7 score, failing perfect because the code is not open to independent review. Unfortunately, WhatsApp users do not get to send unencrypted messages off platform, all users have to have WhatsApp installed.
Either way, though you can be sure that your communications will not be open to nosy relatives, public Wi-Fi network sniffers, cyber-criminals, or law enforcement, should that be an issue in your life.
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About the Author:
I am a cybersecurity and IT instructor, cybersecurity analyst, pen-tester, trainer, and speaker. I am an owner of the WyzCo Group Inc. In addition to consulting on security products and services, I also conduct security audits, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. I also teach Cybersecurity Awareness Training classes. I work as an information technology and cybersecurity instructor for several training and certification organizations. I have worked in corporate, military, government, and workforce development training environments I am a frequent speaker at professional conferences such as the Minnesota Bloggers Conference, Secure360 Security Conference in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, the (ISC)2 World Congress 2016, and the ISSA International Conference 2017, and many local community organizations, including Chambers of Commerce, SCORE, and several school districts. I have been blogging on cybersecurity since 2006 at http://wyzguyscybersecurity.com