FBI warns people against sending text messages

A massive cyberattack, nicknamed Salt Typhoon, on telecommunication companies has prompted warnings from security officials against text messaging as they believe data can be protected through encrypted messages.

Salt Typhoon, a hacking campaign named by Microsoft, has managed to infiltrate eight major telecommunication firms in the United States, according to Metro UK. 

Two of the US officials and a senior FBI official who requested to remain anonymous, and executive assistant director for cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Jeff Greene, recommended using encrypted messaging apps for those who want to lessen the chances of their data getting infiltrated.

“Our suggestion, what we have told folks internally, is not new here: Encryption is your friend, whether it’s on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communication,” Greene told NBC News.

“Even if the adversary is able to intercept the data, if it is encrypted, it will make it impossible,” he added.

As for the senior FBI official who didn’t want to be named said: “People looking to further protect their mobile device communications would benefit from considering using a cellphone that automatically receives timely operating system updates, responsibly managed encryption and phishing resistant multi-factor authentication for email, social media and collaboration tool accounts”.

However, how do encrypted messages even work and how do they protect your data? To simply put, encrypted messages have a tool which converts information into scrambled text which can only be decoded through a “secret key”.

Encrypted messages prevent third parties or interceptors from accessing the texts as only the recipient has the decryption key to read it.

The senior US officials said that the hackers accessed three types of data and information. The first being call records or meta data followed by live phone calls and the third being the systems that telecommunications companies use in accordance with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).

In conclusion, the security officials have warned against using basic network text messaging, in its place, encrypted messaging apps should be use to maximise protection of private data.