How to make sure texts, calls are encrypted after FBI security warning
Federal officials warned that a massive Chinese hacking operation against American telecommunications companies hasn’t yet been fully expelled.
Federal officials warned Tuesday that a massive Chinese hacking operation against American telecommunications companies hasn’t yet been fully expelled and that the best way to hide communications from Beijing’s spies is to use encryption.
Encryption is a technology that scrambles a message and requires a “key” to be able to see or hear it.
Different app makers and platforms have used the technology in various forms for more than a decade so governments and hackers that intercept them as they pass through telecommunications infrastructure will see only gibberish. While adopting the technology has historically prompted complaints from law enforcement agencies — including the FBI — it’s also a way people can communicate more privately.
Telecommunications companies tend to temporarily store call and SMS records — which phone number called or texted which, and when — and they briefly store the contents of SMS texts. Audio, however, is generally not recorded. That means it’s easier for hackers like those in the Chinese campaign, which Microsoft has nicknamed Salt Typhoon, to get massive amounts of data on phone records and some stored text messages, but they have to be targeted in listening to specific phone calls as they happen.
For everyday consumers, the simplest way to send encrypted messages or make encrypted calls is to use communications apps like Signal or WhatsApp that have implemented end-to-end encryption between other Signal and WhatsApp users. With end-to-end encryption, every user of an encrypted chat app holds the unique code to unscramble a message sent to that account. Importantly, the corporate owner and the operator of the app don’t have access to that key, so they won’t be able to unscramble an encrypted message even if a court demands it or it is hacked.
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