More companies are now using team chat applications, such as Atlassian HipChat, Cisco Spark, Microsoft Teams, RingCentral...

Enjoy this article as well as all of our content, including E-Guides, news, tips and more.

By submitting your personal information, you agree that TechTarget and its partners may contact you regarding relevant content, products and special offers.

You also agree that your personal information may be transferred and processed in the United States, and that you have read and agree to the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy.

Glip and Slack. As a result, IT leaders are moving from debating the merits of adopting such applications to practical concerns around security and information protection of corporate data stored within the apps.

Vendors in the team messaging space are increasingly differentiating themselves on the basis of security. For example, Cisco, ClearChat and Symphony tout their end-to-end messaging encryption models as superior to other vendors that only provide messaging encryption at rest or in motion.

The issue of messaging encryption has also spilled into the consumer world, with the European Union recently issuing draft legislation mandating end-to-end encryption for all messaging services.

As team chat applications gain traction in the enterprise, IT leaders should familiarize themselves with the various flavors of messaging encryption:

For IT leaders evaluating various team messaging applications, let risk be your guide.

Consumer messaging services, such as Kik, and many popular business-focused apps, such as Slack, do not yet offer end-to-end encryption, meaning messages are only encrypted at rest and in motion. Therefore, messaging providers could be compelled by court order to decrypt and turn over message data.

In a worst-case scenario, messaging systems could be hacked, resulting in the release of messaging data out into the wild.

Providers offering end-to-end messaging encryption -- with user-held keys -- offer an added layer of security by enabling customers to control access to message stores. With end-to-end encryption, even if a government agency were to show up at the provider's door with a warrant, the provider could only turn over encrypted message data to the agency. The only way of decrypting messages -- short of hacking encryption algorithms -- is by obtaining the keys from the customer of the messaging provider.

Most organizations can accept the risk of not using end-to-end encryption. But for companies in regulated industries or organizations looking for an extra level of protection, evaluate end-to-end encrypted services with a self-owned key management capability.

Take these steps to secure your messaging applications.

Team chat apps see huge growth and fierce competition.

Are business chat apps becoming the next UC platforms?

View original post here:
End-to-end messaging encryption gives customers key controls - TechTarget

German police may now hack into messengers like WhatsApp using state trojans to intercept user communications before they are encrypted on their devices, according to a new law swiftly passed by the parliament.

The new legislation allows police investigators to use a state trojan to hack into a suspects mobile device, tablet, or computer, and get full access to their chat messages, video recordings, or other private data, German media reported.

Read more

The state trojans could make it easier to bypass the encryption employed by popular messaging services, including WhatsApp, as they can gain access to data straight from the source, well before it is secured by the messengers.

The Bundestag voted the bill into law during the second and third readings on Thursday, Spiegel reported. The ruling coalition of conservative CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats overwhelmingly supported the measure, saying it will ensure more efficient execution of criminal proceedings. The Greens and the Left Party rejected it, however.

The new legislation will allow German law enforcement agencies to obtain a copy of a devices hard drive or remotely search it in specific cases.

The use of the state malware will not be restricted to terrorism-related cases, however, German media reported. Surveillance of encrypted communications in cases involving suspected tax evasion, drug trafficking, and sports betting fraud is also expected to be considered legal under the new legislation.

Until now, German law enforcement could only wiretap a suspects SMS communications and regular phone conversations in specific serious cases. Looking at messages sent through encrypted services has been prohibited by law.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp updated its messenger service in April last year with end-to-end encryption, enabling a lock to secure communications between individual users or in a group chat.

Amid a heated debate on finding the balance between privacy and security concerns, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg praised the update as an important milestone for the WhatsApp community.

Advocating the new surveillance amendment, the German government argued it would help authorities tackle rising security threats.

Read more

We often see that criminals communicate using encrypted ways, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said, as cited by Rheinische Post. Encryption protects a right for private communication. But it is not a carte blanche for criminals.

This is how we facilitate efficient, cutting-edge law enforcement that's keeping us all safe, Michael Frieser, domestic policy expert of the CSU party, said in the Bundestag on Thursday, according to Deutsche Welle.

However, critics within and outside government circles have doubted the law is constitutional.

State-sponsored hacking is much worse than a big malware attack, because nowadays the entire private life is stored on mobile devices, including photos, contacts, SMS, emails as well as location and movement data, said Jan Korte MP (Left Party) as cited by Spiegel.

The one who surveils computers and smartphones can also activate microphones and data storage, allowing him to know nearly everything on the target person, Judge Ulf Buermeyer, head of the German Society for Civil Rights, wrote in a statement for Handelsblatt daily.

Opponents of the surveillance amendment have also lambasted the way the bill was pitched to the Bundestag. Hans-Christian Stroebele, member of the parliaments Judiciary Committee for the Green Party, told Deutsche Welle MPs were informed about the amendment on very short notice and had almost no time to prepare for a meaningful discussion.

The amendment itself has been part of a large document proposing changes to German criminal law.

One can't help but get the impression that this serious infraction of civil liberties was deliberately hidden in a regular adjustment bill to push it through quickly and without discussion, the president of the German Lawyers Association, Ulrich Schellenberg, wrote in an email to the news agency.

See the rest here:
'State trojans': New German law enables police to hack into ... - RT

By EP (Mariya Gabriel) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The European Commission's (EC) incoming digital commissioner, Mariya Gabriel, has failed to share specifics of her position on encryption in a hearing which confirms her into the role.

Soon to be in charge of the EC's digital economy and society portfolio, she was asked questions by MEPs on the topic in a two-and-a-half hour long session but failed to make her position clear.

Encryption has been a very hot topic recently. The UK government for one has often called for ways to bypass encryption as it sees it as giving terrorists a space space to hide.

Other countries are looking to do the same, for much of the same reasons, including France, Spain, and joined last week by Germany.

Earlier this week, the European Parliament's civil liberties and justice committee unveiled plans as part of the ePrivacy regulation to enforce end-to-end encryption on electronic communications.

Not wishing to step on the toes of law enforcement, the committee said it recognised the level of personal data EU citizens were sharing via such communications, such as private medical records and online banking statements, so decided that communications deserved a strong level of encryption to ensure no information is lost.

Commissioner Gabriel was a member of the same committee many years during her time in the EU Parliament. She is expected to play an influential role in the discussions on this, so her words were watched carefully.

The proposals brought forward by the committee will need the support of the EU Parliament and Council to make it into law.

Gabriel was questioned on whether she wishes to see digital services have this extra level of protection; she initially appeared to be on the side of encryption, saying, At the moment it's important to have encryption, adding It's a guarantee for security without any possible backdoors. We've already seen member states' initiatives where they've used the deciphering of the encryption and we've seen the results of that. So we need to move forward. Trust, confidence and security for citizens will come from a number of measures, but that's a principle where I propose that we move along the same lines.

When questioned again on whether there will be no government backdoors, she seemed to backtrack saying, Legal access can only take place within very strict conditions, as we have for other legislative measures. And only where it concerns reasons of national security of the highest rank.

It's important because we need to give our own institutions the means to move forward, but we also need to make sure that those very same instruments are not being used by others for purposes other than the positive purposes that we had in mind.

The current EC vice president Andrus Ansip, who is the current commissioner of the digital economy and society brief agrees. Ansip tweeted in March that weakening encryption is not an option and has rejected the idea of government backdoors.

However, when it comes to encryption he also said the interests of law enforcement are not black and white also demonstrating an ambiguous view.

Follow this link:
New EU digital commissioner fails to clarify position on encryption - SC Magazine UK

Outloud Audio Adopts Fortium's MediaSeal File Level Encryption to Meet Heightened Security Threats SHOOT Online Fortium, a leading provider of digital content security solutions for media and entertainment, today announces Outloud Audio, Los Angeles and New York, as a new customer for MediaSeal, its file encryption software, which protects unaired TV and movie ...

Read the original post:
Outloud Audio Adopts Fortium's MediaSeal File Level Encryption to Meet Heightened Security Threats - SHOOT Online