BT to offer customers encryption service for data – Capacity Media (registration)

BT is to offer transparent encryption to its customers in 180 countries, in order to protect corporate information and critical data including big data that is held in the cloud and elsewhere.

The company has signed a deal with the e-security unit of French multinational Thales to provide its Vormetric transparent encryption to customers. The system will allow customers to encrypt data-at-rest, control privileged user access and manage a collection of security intelligence logs without re-engineering applications, databases or infrastructure.

David Stark, vice president of BTs security portfolio, said: "Security and integrity of data remains one of the biggest concerns for our customers when deploying cloud solutions. Through our agreement with Vormetric, we provide our customers with an additional layer of security that helps them protect data stored in the cloud as well as enhance access control."

Mike Coffield, vice president of global channel strategy at Thales e-Security, said that organisations "have never faced a more significant threat from cyberattacks, with breaches not only potentially costing vast sums of money in fines, but also longer term damage to brand, reputation and market value".

The companies said that the collaboration "represents a significant step forward for organisations seeking to address todays growing business challenge of protecting mission-critical data and corporate information assets".

BT Security said it provides managed services to 6,500 customers worldwide, including both private and public-sector organisations. Customers will be able to buy the service as a licence or a subscription.

Coffield added: "With organisations increasingly deploying techniques such as cloud computing and big data to drive up customer service, it is critical that this proliferation of data is safeguarded from getting into the wrong hands."

Topics: BT, Thales, security, e-security, cloud, big data, encryption, Vormetric

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BT to offer customers encryption service for data - Capacity Media (registration)

What the CIA WikiLeaks Dump Tells Us: Encryption Works – New York Times


TechnoBuffalo
What the CIA WikiLeaks Dump Tells Us: Encryption Works
New York Times
NEW YORK If the tech industry is drawing one lesson from the latest WikiLeaks disclosures, it's that data-scrambling encryption works, and the industry should use more of it. Documents purportedly outlining a massive CIA surveillance program suggest ...
No, the CIA hasn't cracked Signal and WhatsApp's encryptionTechnoBuffalo
These messaging apps are safe from all of the CIA's known hacking toolsBGR

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What the CIA WikiLeaks Dump Tells Us: Encryption Works - New York Times

Snake-Oil Alert Encryption Does Not Prevent Mass-Snooping – Center for Research on Globalization

The WikiLeaksstashof CIA hacking documents shows tools used by the CIA to hack individual cell-phones and devices. There are no documents yet that suggest mass snooping efforts on a very large scale. Unlike the NSA which has a collect it all attitude towards internet traffic and content the CIA seems to be more interested in individual hacking.

This suggests that the CIA can not decipher the modern encrypted communication it adversaries use. It therefore has to attack their individual devices.

But it does not mean that the CIA can not engage in mass snooping.

The New York Timesdescriptionis wrong:

Some technical experts pointed out that while the documents suggest that the C.I.A. might be able to compromise individual smartphones, there was no evidence that the agency could break the encryption that many phone and messaging apps use.If the C.I.A. or the National Security Agency could routinely break the encryption used on such apps as Signal, Confide, Telegram and WhatsApp, then the government might be able to intercept such communications on a large scale and search for names or keywords of interest. But nothing in the leaked C.I.A. documents suggests that is possible.

Instead, the documents indicate that because of encryption, the agency must target an individual phone and then can intercept only the calls and messages that pass through that phone. Instead of casting a net for a big catch, in other words,C.I.A. spies essentially cast a single fishing line at a specific target, and do not try to troll an entire population.

The difference between wholesale surveillance and targeted surveillance is huge, said Dan Guido, a director at Hack/Secure, a cybersecurity investment firm. Instead of sifting through a sea of information, theyre forced to look at devices one at a time.

Snake-oil alert: Right diagnosis, wrong conclusion and therapy.

If the CIA breaks into an individual Samsung Galaxy 7 it can record what is typed on the screen, and whatever gets transferred via the microphone, camera and loudspeaker. No encryption can protect against that. But why should the CIA break into only one Galaxy 7?

It is wrong to conclude that the CIA can therefore not intercept such communications on a large scale. It can. Easily.

If you can break into one individual Samsung Galaxy 7 you can break into all of them. This can be automated.

The CIA also breaks into internet routers and network infrastructure systems. By watching the network traffic flowing by the CIA (and NSA) systems can see who uses encrypted communication. They can then launch programs to silently take over the communicating devices. Then the communication can be recorded from the devices and read in the clear. There is nothing at all that prohibits this to take place on a massive scale.

The reaction to the Snowden leaks about gigantic NSA snooping on internet lines led to an increased use of encryption. Suddenly everyone used HTTPS for web traffic and the user numbers of Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp and other encrypting communication applications exploded.

But encrypted traffic still sticks out. One can detect an encrypted skype call by watching the network traffic on this or that telecom network. One can detect what kind of end-devices are taking part in a specific call. With a library of attack tools for each of the usual end-devices (Iphone, Android, Windows, Mac) the involved end-devices can be silently captured and the call can be recorded without encryption.

The Times writes: Instead of casting a net for a big catch, in other words, C.I.A. spies essentially cast a single fishing line at a specific target, and do not try to troll an entire population.

It is right in one sense. There is not one central point in the river of traffic where one casts the net. But it is wrong in to conclude that the CIA or other services would then use a single fishing line. What hinders them from using hundreds of fishing lines? Thousands? Hundred-thousands?

Wide use on encryption simply moves the snooping efforts from the networks towards the end-devices. It might be a little more expensive to snoop on hundred-thousands of end-devices than on a few network backbones but budget or manpower restriction are not a problem the NSA and CIA have had in recent decades.

To tell users that it encryption really restricts the CIA and NSA is nonsense. Indeed it is irresponsible.

The sellers of encryption are peddling snake-oil. The dude from a cybersecurity investment firm the Times quotes is just selling his rancid wares.

Your neighbor snoops on your open WLAN traffic? Yes, chat encryption might prevent him from copying your session with that hot Brazilian boy or girl. But it does not prevent professionals from reading it. For that you would need secure devices on both ends of the communication. Good luck finding such.

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Snake-Oil Alert Encryption Does Not Prevent Mass-Snooping - Center for Research on Globalization

Encryption Backdoors, Vault 7, and the Jurassic Park Rule of Internet Security – Just Security

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Surely without a hint of irony, just a day after WikiLeaks dumped a vault-load of documents detailing the Central Intelligence Agencys use of hacking tools and software exploits, FBI Director James Comey told an audience at a Boston College conference on cybersecurity that [t]here is no such thing as absolute privacy in America. Comeys elevator pitch in support of his claim was that there is no place outside of judicial reach, citing the fact that even time-tested testimonial privileges of the spousal, clergypenitent, and attorneyclient sort can be pierced by judges in appropriate circumstances. Comeys argument, which hes made at a steady drumbeat for several years now, is that sure, privacy is important, but law-enforcement access is paramount. The government and judges, not technology, should decide when the government can get to your private information.

If only things were that simple. Comey has at various times tried to disclaim any desire to have Congress mandate backdoors to encryption-enabled devices and services, even getting himself laughed off of C-SPAN when he suggested that his approach would provide a front door instead. When it comes to encryption, doors are doors, andas Julian Sanchez comprehensively explained more than two years ago, at the dawn of the Crypto Wars sequelthey are a truly terrible idea. To briefly recapitulate Julians post: it is damn near impossible to create a security vulnerability that can only be exploited by the good guys; there are lots of governments out there that no freedom-loving person would classify as the good guys (an observation that takes on a chilling new cast in light of recent events); any backdoor or retention mandate both implicitly assumes and, if it is to be effective, must effectivelyencouragecentralized over decentralized computing and communications architectures; and even if encryption really is law enforcements digital-age bte noire, it is a small price to pay in the Golden Age of Surveillance.

So what does this all have to do with the Vault 7 leak? Its a fair question. Software exploits of the type disclosed by Wikileaks and encryption backdoors might both technically be lines of computer code, but the stakes surrounding each are distinct. For the reasons Julian put forward (and more), encryption backdoors should be a complete non-starter. Mandating backdoors would present a grave security threat to critical internet infrastructure. As a quartet of leading security researchers put it in a highly regarded paper in 2014, mandating built-in encryption backdoors amounts to intentionally and systematically creating a set of predictable new vulnerabilities that despite best efforts will be exploitable by everyone.

When law enforcement or intelligence agencies exploit existing security vulnerabilities, things are perhaps less clear cut. Unlike with backdoors, not every exploit of a software vulnerability poses a systemic risk. (While a backdoor to the iPhone would put a hole in every pocket, the targeted deployment of an exploit would not.) Still, many vulnerability exploits have widespread consequences, putting internet security at risk. As the security quartet put it, the danger of proliferation means each use of an exploit, even if it has previously run successfully, increases the risk that the exploit will escape the targeted device. Call it the Jurassic Park Rule of Internet Security:

Jim, the kind of control youre attempting simply is . . . its not possible. If there is one thing the history of internet security has taught us its that vulnerabilities will not be contained. Vulnerabilities break free, they expand to new territories and crash through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh . . . well, there it is. . . . Im simply saying that vulnerabilities . . . find a way.

For example, despite reportedly rigorous testing before deployment, the Stuxnet worm used by the United States and Israel to attack an Iranian nuclear facility unexpectedly spread to non-target computers. And when the government sits on a zero-day exploit to be able to exploit it later, there is always the chance that an adversary is doing the same thing. These risks are, for the most part, inherently unknowable beforehand.

While its true that there are unknown risks associated with both exploits and encryption backdoors, only the latter amount to deliberately introduced vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, Comey has been quite skeptical of the notion that giving the government a golden key into the encrypted devices of millions of users would present a broad threat to the security of the internet. His theory, after all, is that the governmentwith judges as gatekeeperwill use such a key responsibly and with oversight. But Vault 7 is a visceral reminder that the public cant trust the government to keep this stuff safehell, not even the government can trust the government to do so. And backdoors present an even more cut-and-dried case than exploits.

Even if an exploit or a backdoor is yours and yours alone for now, your monopoly is either a chimera, or it will be short-lived. And the consequences of spillover can beas Jeff Goldblum learned the hard wayequally unpredictable and devastating. While WikiLeaks did not publish any malicious code this week, it did claim that the contents of Vault 7 have been circulating among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner.

What happens when a highly weaponized suite of hacking tools makes its way into the broader internet? I hope we are not about to find outbut if we are, I suspect that Comey and his colleagues at the FBI are unlikely to be happy with what they find. Heres hoping the experience gives them pause the next time they ponder whether their solution to the threat of absolute privacy is really such a good one after all.

Image: Darin McCollister/Getty.

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Encryption Backdoors, Vault 7, and the Jurassic Park Rule of Internet Security - Just Security

Best encryption software: Top 5 – Computer Business Review

This list of five of the best encryption software on the market includes examples of platforms that enable a cutting edge, interactive experience by harnessing the storage capabilities of the cloud, and special decoy, deterrent features.

Also included in our list are systems that might be less high-tech and intuitive to use, but will equip a user with high-level, industry standard protection by incorporating multiple encryption methods. Some examples in this list are rooted in a specific operating system, while there are also systems included that provide maximum mobility.

Price is also factored into this list of the best options, with some of the free options presenting extremely effective safeguards from the free version of the system.

In contrast to systems such as Veracrypt, the only free element of this encryption software is the trial, however the product is widely considered robust, with capabilities to support small teams and individuals within a business setting.

AxCrypt was launched in 2001 with the intention of addressing the sharing of confidential data over the Internet, and to find security solutions for Internet services while aiming to make an easy to use design and appearance.

The specs behind the software include 128-bit or 256-bit advanced encryption standard (AES), and differs to some of the competition in that the software utilises cloud storage. This will mean the protection you receive with the product sill also span files saved on Dropbox or Google Drive.

A high level of interaction and control is made available with the software, as encrypted files can be accessed through a smartphone app. The software can also be used widely on a global scale, as advanced multilingual abilities are integrated within the software; some of these are Korean, Portuguese and Swedish.

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Best encryption software: Top 5 - Computer Business Review

That Encrypted Chat App the White House Liked? Full of Holes – WIRED

Slide: 1 / of 1. Caption: Caption: A woman would normally produce this photo and write this caption. She is not here because of the International Women's Day strike. WIRED

Leaks have plagued the Trump administration since he took office less than seven weeks ago. The presidents anger about these backchannels has grown, up to and including reported demands of an investigation into the source. Press secretary Sean Spicer has even apparently taken to doing random phone checks, supervised by White House attorneys, to see what staffers and aides are up to on their devices and whether they have secure communication apps.

In the midst of all of this, the end-to-end encrypted, disappearing messages app Confide has emerged as a popular choice among administration officials looking to discuss sensitive topics with coworkers, the press, or other groups. But in spite of Confides claims that it gives you the comfort of knowing that your private messages will now truly stay that way, researchers at security firm IOActive recently notified its developers of a number of critical vulnerabilities in the app. Those have since been resolved, but thats small consolation for White House staffers and general users who relied on Confide while it was exposed.

IOActive found vulnerabilities in numerous areas of the Confide app on Windows, macOS, and Android. By reverse-engineering the applications to see how they work and where they might have weaknesses and probing Confides public API to see what data could be accessible to anyone, the researchers discovered that they could alter messages and attachments in transit, decrypt messages, impersonate users, and reconstruct a database of all Confide users, their names, email addresses, and phone numbers. Its a concerning list of potential attacks for an app that touts security and privacy as its main offerings.

In total, the IOActive researchers laid out 11 vulnerabilities. For example, they were able to access over 7,000 records for users who joined Confide between February 22 and February 24, before Confide detected the intrusion. The database contains between 800,000 and 1 million user records in all. The app didnt have protection against brute-forcing account passwords and didnt even have strong minimum requirements for what a users password could be. It didnt notify recipients when senders sent unencrypted messages, and the system didnt require a valid web encryption certificate.

IOActive disclosed the bugs to Confide on February 28. Confide was already aware of some of the bugs after detecting the researchers probing, and by March 3 the company told IOActive that all the vulnerabilities had been patched. IOActive says that it was satisfied with Confides reaction. When our researchers connected with Confide to disclose the vulnerabilities, they were receptive to our research, quick to move on addressing critical issues found, and worked with us to share the information, IOActive CEO Jennifer Steffens said in a statement.

Confide has been around since 2014, though, so protecting the app going forward, while crucial, doesnt mitigate the risk its users have already faced. But Confide assures its users that the bugs were never exploited. Our security team is continuously monitoring our systems to protect our users integrity, says Confide president Jon Brod. IOActives attempt to gather account information was detected and stopped in real time. Not only has this particular issue been resolved, but we also have no detection of it being exploited by any other party. In addition, weve also ensured that the same or similar approaches will not be possible going forward.

Other researchers have piled on similar findings about the state of Confides security. Experts have also been calling the app out for a while for using proprietary cryptography and offering no evidence that it has invited independent code audits to check for vulnerabilities. Encrypted communication services that are open source, like Signal, garner more trust in the security community because of their transparency.

Public review of open source code can [reveal] such flaws, says Sven Dietrich, a cryptography researcher at CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He adds that code reviews allow experts to identify programming mistakes that jeopardize user messages or credentials, and protocol mistakes like improper exchange of keys or messages. Basically, all the issues Confide ran into.

Its difficult for consumers to know which security products to choose or even how to compare the options. This puts responsibility on software makers to secure their products. Encryption software assumes such an important role today. The only way to ensure that a piece of software does not contain back doors or gaping holes is to have independent trust experts audit the code. This is best practice, says Kevin Curran, a cybersecurity researcher at Ulster University and IEEE senior member. We all know that it is unreasonable to expect vulnerability-free software, but we need to look at risk mitigation.

Now that Confide has patched its vulnerabilities, users will have more protection. But without greater transparency, users may not have confidence that other flaws arent lurking in their favorite encrypted chat app. For a White House staffer leaking information critical to United States discourse and fearing retribution from a temperamental boss, theres no room for error.

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That Encrypted Chat App the White House Liked? Full of Holes - WIRED

The real lesson of WikiLeaks’ massive CIA document dump encryption works – Yahoo Finance

WikiLeaks posting Tuesday of a gigantic trove of CIA documents shows one thing: Our communications are increasingly secure.

You, however, may have seen a different distillation of this data dump in headlines warning the CIA could have been spying on you through your phone, tablet and even TV all along.

But that take gets this story wrong. And we need to get it right to understand a debate we keep coming back to: Should developers of encrypted devices and apps provide special access to law-enforcement agencies?

WikiLeaks announced Tuesday that it had posted 8,761 documents from a CIA facility in Langley, Va. the first in a series of planned disclosures of the agencys activities that the group calls Vault 7. This batch focused on the CIAs ability to conduct surveillance by hacking devices and apps, something WikiLeaks chose to highlight by playing up the scare factor of the CIA or the United Kingdoms MI5 intelligence agency hacking into your smart TV to turn it into a clandestine listening device.

Thats the goal of a CIA program, code-namedWeeping Angel, that targeted someSamsung smart TVs to listen in on people. WikiLeaks the secretive group founded by Julian Assange to post government documents called Weeping Angel the most emblematic realization of the endless surveillance described in George Orwells book 1984.

Much first-round coverage for instance, a New York Daily News front page, inspired by the movie Poltergeist, that had a headline screaming THEY HEE-EAR obligingly focused on that angle without providing an important bit of context.

That would be the detail that Weeping Angel apparently requires somebody to plug a USB flash drive into the TV in question to load this malware. And the CIA document posted by WikiLeaks observes that Firmware version 1118+ eliminated the current USB installation method, so it no longer works on an updated set anyway.

If somebody from the CIA can sneak into your house and pop a flash drive into your TV, you have many larger problems. The CIA agent, meanwhile, might find it more efficient to hide traditional listening bugs throughout your house instead of limiting her attention to your TV.

The CIAs attempts to crack smartphones, meanwhile, all appear to target old versions of iOS and Android.

For example, a table of iOS exploits doesnt list any versions of that Apple (AAPL) operating system newer than 9.2. The current release is iOS 10, and its already on 79% of devices. The 24 Android exploits listed, meanwhile, dont specify a version newer than 4.4.4, far behind the current 7.1.1 release of the Google (GOOG, GOOGL) operating systemalthough an embarrassingly high 33.4% of Android devices run versions as old as 4.4.4.

Both Google and Apple have said theyve closed most of these holes, many of which also require physical access to a phone. In a Thursday video appearance, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the group would share data on the other vulnerabilities with companies affected.

Donald Trumps Android may be more at risk than other devices. AP Photo/Matt Rourke

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President Donald Trumps own Android phone photos suggest its a 2012 Galaxy S3 may be among the more exposed devices, owing to its Android software seeing its last update in 2015. That and the sight of WikiLeaks targeting the CIA instead of his political opponents may explain why the man who in October tweeted a compliment for the incredible information provided by WikiLeaks now seems much less fond of the group.

Summed up security analyst Robert Graham in a post unpacking the Vault 7 news: Most of this dump is childs play, simply malware/trojans cobbled together from bits found on the internet.

WikiLeaks says its only posted about 1% of the total Vault 7 info, so its possible that scarier stuff lurks in this file. And other details, like the disclosure of CIA efforts to hack wireless routers remotely, point to lingering security problems that the tech industry needs to address before it connects every computerized device to the internet.

But we can draw one conclusion from the revelations available now: Encryption works. Otherwise intelligence agencies would not work so hard to compromise individual devices.

Thats an easy thing to overlook in, for example, a tweet from WikiLeaks suggesting that these exploits allow the CIA to defeat such encrypted communications apps as Signal or WhatsApp. Yes, they could allow the CIA to take over a phone and thereby log a users speech and touchscreen interactions but a CIA technician could also bypass Signals encryption by looking over a Signal users shoulder.

But without that compromise of an individual phone, the CIA cant snoop on a Signal chat.

The alternative to hacking into specific devices is to require manufacturers and developers to keep extra keys for cops. That was the focus of last years dispute between Apple and the FBIover unlocking an iPhone 5 used by one of the San Bernardino shooters: The Feds wanted Apple to write software that would defeat the lock on any iPhone 5, but Apple resisted and the FBI eventually paid a third party to hack into that particular device.

FBI director James Comey offered a reminder of that in a speech Wednesday in which he said there is no such thing as absolute privacy in America and called on tech firms to provide some way for law enforcement to access a locked device after getting a court order.

The prospect of the three-letter agencies targeting your phone can be scary, not least since they could probably do it. As security expert Bruce Schneier said at a May 2015 event in Washington, when the debate over whether to restrain the National Security Agencys bulk surveillance was nearing its end: If the NSA wanted to be in my computer, theyd be in it.

But, Schneier noted, that must be seen as a desirable outcome of encryption systems operating as designed: They make bulk collection infeasible and force the listeners to target.

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Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.

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The real lesson of WikiLeaks' massive CIA document dump encryption works - Yahoo Finance

ECI Introduces the First Layer 1 Optical Encryption as a Service Solution With Line Rates up to 200Gbps – Yahoo Finance

PETACH TIKVA, Israel, March 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

ECI, a global provider of ELASTIC Network solutions for service providers, critical infrastructures and data center operators, announced today the introduction of its first optical encryption as a service solution. The solution supports per-service encryption up to 100Gbps, with line rates up to 200Gbps, without sacrificing interoperability, scalability, or flexibility. This makes it particularly suitable for service providers, financial, medical and government institutions.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141117/158923LOGO )

Jimmy Mizrahi, EVP Global Portfolio at ECI said, "In today's world, information security is a critical business imperative for any institution. Communications traffic can be intercepted at any point in the network, via fiber taps for example, thus necessitating encryption to guarantee the integrity of the data being transmitted. As such, optical-layer encryption has become key to a sound security strategy. For financial and government institutions, where livelihoods depend on the transfer of extremely sensitive information, this is even more important."

ECI's solution offers a unique encryption on a per-service basis up to 200Gbps, making it one of the fastest in the market. Moreover, the solution enables service providers and other institutions to offer Layer 1 encryption as a service for additional revenue streams. This reinforces ECI's tailored security offering targeted at service providers launched earlier this year. ECI's encryption method is certified FIPS 140-2 Security Level 2. The L1 encryption can also run as alien lambda over other optical networks offering a much more flexible and economical solution.

Contrary to Layer 2 (or higher layer) encryption, optical encryption provides no information about the underlying services to a potential hacker. It adds almost no latency and can be used to encrypt any service - not just Ethernet-based services. As such, optical encryption is preferred in situations where latency is crucial such as healthcare, smart cities and intelligent transportation.

ECI will be exhibiting its cloud and security offerings at Cloud Expo Europe 2017 to be held in London ExCel, March 15-16, 2017 at Booth #825.

About ECI

ECI is a global provider of ELASTIC network solutions to CSPs, critical infrastructures as well as data center operators. Along with its long-standing, industry-proven packet-optical transport, ECI offers a variety of SDN/NFV applications, end-to-end network management, a comprehensive cyber security solution, and a range of professional services. ECI's ELASTIC solutions ensure open, future-proof, and secure communications. With ECI, customers have the luxury of choosing a network that can be tailor-made to their needs today while being flexible enough to evolve with the changing needs of tomorrow. For more information, visit us at http://www.ecitele.com.

Press contact: Marjie Hadad - MH Communications On behalf of ECI +972-54-536-5220 marjierhadad@gmail.com

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ECI Introduces the First Layer 1 Optical Encryption as a Service Solution With Line Rates up to 200Gbps - Yahoo Finance

Has The CIA Killed Encryption For Mobile, Connected Devices? – MediaPost Communications

WikiLeaks dumped another batch of classified documents on Tuesday depicting the CIAs methods for bypassing encrypted mobile devices and applications.

Dubbed #Vault7, Tuesdays leak of thousands of Web pages describes the types of technology the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) uses to hack targeted citizens and foreign governments. WikiLeaks claims this is the first part of a series of leaks it has titled Year Zero, allegedly taken from the CIAs Center for Cyber Intelligence unit in Langley, Virginia.

In what may be the largest CIA breach in history, the Vault7 files describe the software tools the agency uses to break into computers and devices connected to the Internet, including televisions.

The leaked documents also reveal that the CIA has developed sophisticated technology for hacking Apple and Android mobile devices, collecting audio and messaging data and bypassing encryption on mobile applications like Signal and Whatsapp.

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ProtonMail, an end-to-end encrypted email service, has confirmed that none of the Vault7 documents indicate the company's encryption has been compromised.

We can state unequivocally that there is nothing in the leaked CIA files which indicates any sort of crack of ProtonMails encryption, states Andy Yen, co-founder of ProtonMail, in a blog post.And despite claims to the contrary, there is also no evidence that Signal/Whatsapp end-to-end encryption has been breached.

Founded in 2013 after Edward Snowdens NSA revelations, ProtonMail has since become a popular and secure email service for journalists, activists, dissidents and privacy fans.

Over the past three years, the CIA has put together a formidable arsenal of cyberweapons specially designed to gain surveillance capabilities over end-user devices such as mobile phones and laptop/desktop computers, writes Yen. These advanced malwares enable the CIA to record actions such as keystrokes on a mobile device, allowing them to conduct surveillance without breaking encryption. Through this technique, US intelligence agencies can gain access to databeforethey have been encrypted.

The core cryptography underlying encrypted services like ProtonMail or WhatsApp have not been compromised by intelligence agencies, but the CIA has seemingly disrupted the security of end-user devices.

The use ofend-to-end encryption means services such as ProtonMail are not actually able to decrypt user data, writes Yen. Even if we wanted to compromise user data, we do not have the technical means to decrypt the user emails.Furthermore, even if an attacker breached ProtonMail servers, all the emails stored on our servers are encrypted, so an attacker also would not be able to read user emails.

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Has The CIA Killed Encryption For Mobile, Connected Devices? - MediaPost Communications

No, you shouldn’t delete Signal or other encrypted apps – TechCrunch


TechCrunch
No, you shouldn't delete Signal or other encrypted apps
TechCrunch
Journalists are just starting to pore over the files, but a number of security researchers and privacy advocates are hoping to quash the misconception that encrypted chat apps like Signal and WhatsApp have been compromised. A now corrected tweet by The ...
The Best Encryption Apps For Your PhoneKnow Your Mobile
Want to chat securely? Here's what to look for in an appCNNMoney
How secure is WhatsApp?CSO Australia
ATTN
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No, you shouldn't delete Signal or other encrypted apps - TechCrunch