{"id":439142,"date":"2022-03-29T12:12:45","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T10:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=439142"},"modified":"2022-03-30T09:50:56","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T07:50:56","slug":"whatapp-privacy-under-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/439142-whatapp-privacy-under-threat.html","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp privacy under threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cybersecurity experts have warned that incoming legislation targeting Big Tech in Europe could have devastating consequences for encryption in messaging apps like WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

The European Union (EU) recently announced the new Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is aimed at curbing large tech companies’ power and increasing the competitiveness of smaller players.<\/p>\n

Among its requirements is that dominant apps such as Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger, and Apple’s iMessage, must be interoperable with smaller platforms.<\/p>\n

That means that end-to-end encrypted services will have to be able to interact with less secure protocols, including SMS.<\/p>\n

According to cryptographers who spoke to The Verge<\/strong><\/a>, it would be difficult, but more likely, impossible, to maintain encryption across apps.<\/p>\n

“Trying to reconcile two different cryptographic architectures simply can’t be done; one side or the other will have to make major changes,” said Internet security researcher at Columbia University, Steven Bellovin.<\/p>\n

“A design that works only when both parties are online will look very different than one that works with stored messages. How do you make those two systems interoperate?”<\/p>\n

Under the legislation, WhatsApp would have to remove or significantly weaken its end-to-end encryption \u2014 among the app’s most promoted features.<\/p>\n

End-to-end encryption ensures messages sent between two parties are only viewable by the sender and recipient, providing complete privacy of communication.<\/p>\n

Without this capability, messages could be susceptible to attackers or authoritarian governments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An alternative approach the DMA proposed is decrypting and re-encrypting messages sent between incompatible platforms.<\/p>\n

However, experts have cautioned that it would create a vulnerable point in the messaging chain that malicious actors could potentially exploit.<\/p>\n

Matthew Hodgson, the founder of Matrix, a secure, open-source communication standard project, addressed some of the cryptographers’ concerns in a recent blog post<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hodgson believes an open-source platform could eliminate gatekeeper companies like Apple and Facebook from building walls around their ecosystems to trap as many users as possible.<\/p>\n

“On balance, we think that the benefits of mandating open APIs outweigh the risks that someone is going to run a vulnerable large-scale bridge and undermine everyone’s end-to-end encryption,” Hodgson stated.<\/p>\n

“It’s better to have the option to be able to get at your data in the first place than be held hostage in a walled garden.”<\/p>\n

He has listed several possibilities to keep messages private while ensuring platforms are interoperable, including client-side bridges and having the gatekeepers switch to an open, decentralised encryption protocol.<\/p>\n

The legislation is expected to come into effect sometime in October 2022, with the tech companies required to adhere to obligations in a staggered period.<\/p>\n

Failure to comply with the requirements could see companies fined up to 10% of their global turnover in the preceding financial year, and 20% for repeated violations.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: How criminals can use stolen data from the TransUnion hack<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WhatsApp might have to get rid of end-to-end encryption under new EU laws. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":439160,"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_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[605,77528,36075,36670,161,8887,8883,54803,2594],"class_list":["post-439142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-apple","tag-digital-markets-act-dma","tag-end-to-end-encryption","tag-european-union-eu","tag-facebook","tag-facebook-messenger","tag-imessage","tag-messaging-apps","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439142"}],"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\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":439208,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439142\/revisions\/439208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}