Android and iOS users can now encrypt their WhatsApp chat backups according to the Parent company Facebook. The company made the announcement on 14 October 2021, with the feature already reaching millions of users globally.
That means more than 2 billion of its global users will be able to encrypt their data sent to either Google Drive or iCloud. Normally, encrypted backups have a key held by the backup platform.
Whatsapp is changing the trajectory by allowing users have sole access to that key. Their data becomes unreadable even to WhatsApp and other backup platforms. The social media company says that users will be able to create a password associated with the key or save a 64-digit encryption key.
The parent company, Facebook will be responsible for storing the associated key in a physical hardware security module, or HSM. This is only accessible when the right password is input.
“WhatsApp is the first global messaging service at this scale to offer end-to-end encrypted messaging and backups, and getting there was a really hard technical challenge that required an entirely new framework for key storage and cloud storage across operating systems,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.
Read Also:
– WhatsApp To End Support For iPhone 6 And Other 42 Phones In November
– How To Encrypt Your Apple Devices: Mac, iPhone, And iPad Backups
– WhatsApp Will Soon Allow Chat History Transfers Between Android & iOS
The messaging application already offers end-to-end messages encryption, so third parties cannot view them.
For the most part, there’s also cloud backup encryption for your messages on WhatsApp. Although this can be viewed by the federal authorities if a search warrant is involved.
This new official cloud encryption feature stops the government from gaining access to your backups. Countries like India have frowned at this kind of development, but WhatsApp believes it’s the right way forward.
Facebook claims “no other global messaging service at this scale provides this level of security for their users’ messages, media, voice messages, video calls and chat backups.”
That’s rightful so, Apps like Telegram, iMessage have a lot of catching up to do. Here’s a detailed process on how to protect your chat backups with end-to-end encryption on Android and iOS here.
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