FBI Warns iPhone And Android Users--Stop Sending Texts

[bucolic_frolic]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2024/12/03/fbi-warns-iphone-and-android-users-stop-sending-texts/

Timing is everything. Just as Apple’s adoption of RCS had seemed to signal a return to text messaging versus the unstoppable growth of WhatsApp, then along comes a surprising new hurdle to stop that in its tracks. While messaging Android to Android or iPhone to iPhone is secure, messaging from one to the other is not.

Now even the FBI and CISA, the US cyber defense agency, are warning Americans to use fully encrypted messaging and phone calls where they can. The backdrop is the Chinese hacking of US networks that is reportedly “ongoing and likely larger in scale than previously understood.” Fully encrypted comms is the best defense against this compromise, and Americans are being urged to use that wherever possible.

The network cyberattacks, attributed to Salt Typhoon, a group associated with China’s Ministry of Public Security, has generated heightened concern as to the vulnerabilities within critical US communication networks. The reality is different. Without fully end-to-end encrypted messaging and calls, there has always been a potential for content to be intercepted. That’s the entire reason the likes of Apple, Google and Meta advise its use, highlighting the fact that even they can’t see content.

As reported by Politico, advice given by CISA’s Jeff Greene and an unnamed FBI senior official included “strongly urging Americans to ‘use your encrypted communications where you have it… we definitely need to do that, kind of look at what it means long-term, how we secure our networks’.”

[hlthe2b]

1. So, if we don't want to use WhatsApp we have to inquire as to the type of phone used by

EVERYONE we might consider texting? Good gawd. Considering how many spam texts I am getting now, it seems that "horse is out of the barn."

[bucolic_frolic]

3. There are several choices in ecrypted apps

https://www.pcmag.com/picks/best-secure-messaging-apps

[erronis]

15. Thanks. I know the US State Department has been recommending Signal for its employees.

I use it to communicate with a daughter overseas. Works very well.

[liberalla]

20. Bookmarking! Thank you!

[Think. Again.]

2. Until someone does a mass sending of the Pegasus virus anyway.

[Mike 03]

4. Wow. This is not a small development. NT

[C_U_L8R]

5. Trump will solve it

by putting a tariff on text messages

[Irish_Dem]

6. FBI is only now understanding the massive hacking by China and Russia?

For God's sake.

Russia and China are winning the war they wage against us and the US is oblivious to it.

[ItsjustMe]

8. They knew of this issue over three years ago.

[LymphocyteLover]

13. why don't they have an iOS update to fix this? They certainly have enough other updates

[jfz9580m]

7. K&R

The era of spiralling polycrises..

[rainin]

9. I'm afraid I don't understand the risk. If I don't say anything that I wouldn't want on the front page of the New York

Times, which includes sensitive information like passwords, can someone help me understand what they can do to me,?

[LymphocyteLover]

10. Yeah, I don't get it either. Is the risk in getting hacked or that they could introduce a virus?

I certainly don't send texts with any crazily sensitive or personal info

[questionseverything]

11. A lot of people do banking, paying with their phone

Once the hackers are in they could control anything connected

[LymphocyteLover]

12. so the risk is someone getting into your phone via texting? How exactly would that work?

They could get in without you even doing anything?

[JoseBalow]

18. Intercepting 2-factor authentication

When I sign in to my financial accounts, I must input a code sent to my phone via text.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-factor_authentication

[LymphocyteLover]

19. Ah, yes... thanks

[paulkienitz]

14. How can it be that hard for Apple to use the encryption that RCS has always offered?

At least they say they're working on it. Maybe it'll all be correctly encrypted some time next year.

[Flatrat]

16. My family uses signal

Started back when it was Textsecure and Redphone.

We can do phone calls and video chat and exchange pictures and files user to user, in addition to texting. We can do group chats as well.

Never get spam.

Encryption is important now more than ever.

Be safe out there.

[ColinC]

17. Attacking canada would be declaring war on NATO

Invading Mexico is declaring war on almost all of Latin America via the RIO pact...