A few days ago, WikiLeaks has revealed that that the CIA has managed has found a way to hack into electronic devices. The same report was claiming that the CIA is able to bypass the encryption of most popular messaging applications, including WhatsApp and Telegram.
This report has caused some huge concerns among many security professional, who rely on encryption protocols in order to protect communications that pass between devices. We have to mention that nobody (not even the developers of the applications) can view those messages while they are in transit. In other words, it would be very hard for the CIA to break this kind of encryption.
However, if we take a closer look at the documents leaked by WikiLeaks, we can see that they confirm that the encryption of WhatsApp and other secure messaging applications have not been compromised.
That’s not all, as it seems that the CIA has found a way to gain direct access to the smartphones that these applications run on and be able to collect message and audio traffic before encryption is applied.
A Telegram spokesperson has said that the application is not having issues regarding the encryption feature. He added that it doesn’t matter which messenger you are using, as no application can stop your keyboard from knowing what keys you’ve pressed.
Edward Joseph Snowden, an American computer professional, former Central Intelligence Agency employee, and former contractor for the United States government, mentioned on his twitter account that the CIA’s ability to hack devices running on Android OS and iOS is a “bigger problem” than breaking encryption.
However, if the CIA has truly found a way to bypass encryption, it means that it would gain access to everyone’s private messages, allowing it to monitor any conversation they want.
Do you think that CIA is able to bypass encryption or to get access to a smartphone that’s running on iOS or Android OS?
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