{"id":194624,"date":"2017-01-13T18:04:40","date_gmt":"2017-01-13T16:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=194624"},"modified":"2017-01-13T18:07:58","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T16:07:58","slug":"whatsapp-does-not-have-a-security-backdoor-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/194624-whatsapp-does-not-have-a-security-backdoor-report.html","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp does not have a security backdoor – Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following a report<\/strong><\/a> by The Guardian that WhatsApp has a backdoor which allows its encrypted messages to be read, Gizmodo has stated<\/a><\/strong> that the app is safe to use.<\/p>\n

The Guardian reported that the backdoor allowed for message “snooping”.<\/p>\n

“Fortunately, there\u2019s no backdoor in WhatsApp, and according to Alec Muffett, an experienced security researcher, the Guardian\u2019s story is major league fuckwittage,” stated Gizmodo.<\/p>\n

WhatsApp uses the\u00a0Signal encryption protocol to protect its users’ messages, which means that an organisation would have to have “cracked what is universally considered to be the best publicly-available encryption scheme”.<\/p>\n

Signal is used in multiple messaging apps, and the report stated that several security experts have dismissed The Guardian’s report.<\/p>\n

Gizmodo stated that the backdoor the report referred to was “a feature working as intended”.<\/p>\n

The “backdoor” feature allows\u00a0encryption keys to “get renegotiated to\u00a0accommodate a new phone” when a device is factory reset, swapped or sold, or a new device is purchased by a user.<\/p>\n

Gizmodo said it would require “significant collaboration” within Facebook for this to be exploited to intercept a user’s messages.<\/p>\n

Now read:\u00a0WhatsApp for Android tests GIF update<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A report by The Guardian that WhatsApp has a backdoor which allows its encrypted messages to be read has users concerned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":131328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[25953,2594],"class_list":["post-194624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-backdoor","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194626,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194624\/revisions\/194626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}