The next update of WhatsApp will improve the security of messages uploaded to the cloud.
Popular instant messaging site WhatsApp announced this Friday that it will allow users to encrypt backup copies of messages stored in the cloud in the coming weeks.
The app, which is owned by Facebook, has been encrypting communications between individuals for many years, so that only the sender and recipient can view the message and no intermediary or hacker can access it.
This security technology is now also available for backups placed on the cloud storage services of companies such as Google or Apple (Drive and iCloud, respectively), and anyone who accesses them without my excuse will understand.
This means that if the user chooses this option for their backups, neither the WhatsApp application nor the cloud service providers (Google and Apple), the security forces can read those messages without a descriptive key.
This type of encryption has received much criticism from police forces and anti-terrorism organizations because it is highly respected by activists in favor of the privacy of Internet users, making it impossible to access the communications of suspects even with a court order. .
“WhatsApp is its first global news service to offer end-to-end encryption for news and backups,” Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.
“Coming to this stage is a very difficult technical challenge, which requires a completely new configuration for key and cloud storage in various operating systems,” said the head of the social network.