Texting has become the preferred way to communicate among many smartphone users, but law enforcement officials have warned that not all of those communications are secure.
The FBI and CISA, the U.S. cyber defense agency, warn that text messages sent between iPhone and Android devices may be vulnerable to Chinese government hacking. Messages between devices using the same system, they say, do not have that vulnerability.
The agencies advise consumers to use full encryption for texts and calls, whenever possible, to mitigate the threat.
Officials say a series of network cyberattacks has been linked to Salt Typhoon, a group believed to be directly associated with China’s Ministry of Public Security. The two agencies say end-to-end encryptions, both for text messages and phone calls, has always been an important security step but has not always been used by consumers.
The FBI said it has determined that a lot of consumers’ data has already been hacked. But most of that is call and text metadata, not the actual content itself. The attacks so far have been limited in nature, mostly targeting people who are government officials or political figures.
End-to-end encryption, also known as E2EE, is a way to establish a secure communication system where only users who are communicating with each other have access. The content can’t be accessed by anyone else, including the system provider, telecom providers, Internet providers or malicious actors.
How to enable encryption
The video below explains how to use end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger:
Google explains how to use end-to-end encryption in Google messages here.