Facebook - owned messaging platform whatsapp has introduced end - to - end - encryption for backups of chat that its user take on cloud services such as google drive or Apple icloud.
the move is being looked at as a step towards closing a loophole that allowed users chats to be outside the purview of encryption and cloud therefore be accessed by a third - party , affecting the users privacy.
Whatsapp said it has been working on bringing this feature out for years and it will be rolled out by the end of this year.
WHAT IS THE NEED FOR BACKUPS TO BE END-TO-END ENCRYPTED
Many users of whatsapp take backups of their chats , which includes test messages , photos , videos and documents shared on the messaging platform.
The content of message chats is valuable to whatsapp users and whatsapp offers an in - an backup feature to protect the content in the events a users device is lost or stolen; and to enable the transfer of their chat history to anew device.
while whatsapp chat service is end - to - end - encrypted , it depended on cloud partners like google drive or icloud to store backups of whatsapp data.
the company had said that earlier that once the chats were uploaded to google drive or icloud , they were out of the encryption channel and were not private any more.
WHAT DOES A USER NEED TO DO TO ENCRYPT THE BACKUPS OF THEIR WHATSAPP CHATS?
Once the service is rolled out later this years , users will get an option to turn on encryption for their backups.
their will be always an option to not backup the chats to ensure that the chats never go out of whatsapp infrastructure.
Once a users decides to encrypt the backup , a 64 - digit key will be generated _ this key will be necessary for the backup to be restore at a later point in time.
Here the user will have two option - either they can store the 64 digit key themselves for safe keeping or use whatsapp new Hardware security module - based backup key vault to store their key with a password they can create.
Comments
Post a Comment