FBI Warns iPhone And Android Users—Stop Sending Texts

[RV_]

Forbes Republished on December 5 with additional comments provided by the FBI and reports into US political pressure given the scale of these Chinese cyber attacks.

 

"Timing is everything. Just as Apple’s adoption of RCS had seemed to signal a return to text messaging versus the unstoppable growth of WhatsApp, then along comes a surprising new hurdle to stop that in its tracks. While messaging Android to Android or iPhone to iPhone is secure, messaging from one to the other is not.

 

Now even the FBI and CISA, the US cyber defense agency, are warning Americans to use responsibly encrypted messaging and phone calls where they can. The backdrop is the Chinese hacking of US networks that is reportedly “ongoing and likely larger in scale than previously understood.” Fully encrypted comms is the best defense against this compromise, and Americans are being urged to use that wherever possible"

 

Much more in the article here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2024/12/05/fbi-warns-iphone-and-android-users-stop-sending-texts/

Edited December 6, 2024 by RV_

[RV_]

Forbes - Nov 24, 2024,06:30am EST

Samsung Warns All iPhone And Android Users—Your Messages Are Now At Risk

Excerpt:

"All change for iPhone users. This year has already seen the biggest shift in texting in a decade, with Apple’s long-awaited adoption of RCS. And next month it will change again, with iPhone users being able to change default messaging apps. But there’s a serious new warning that iPhone and Android users need to be careful what they text.

 

While Apple has introduced RCS, it has adopted the standard protocol which does not yet include the end-to-end encryption that protects Google Messages between Android users, iMessages between Apple users, or the likes of WhatsApp. It could have provided an integration layer with Google Messages to provide this security from launch, but that was not done leaving users at risk.

 

Google and Samsung have just issued a range of odes to RCS, celebrating that it now bridges the Android-iPhone gap. But hidden in a footnote is recognition of that glaring issue. “Samsung and Google welcome a new era of more seamless, cross-platform messaging,” it says. “With the latest version of iOS supporting RCS, the benefits are available beyond the Android ecosystem,” but warns that “encryption is only available for Android to Android communication.” Put very simply—this means your texts can be intercepted and read by others.

 

Timing is everything, and this comes just as the lack of security with general cellular text messaging has been thrust into the headlines yet again, this time by the latest allegations of Chinese hackers running riot across various networks.

 

As one US Senator warned on Friday, these Chinese hackers now “have access to every single one of our major telecommunications companies. They have broken in. They can read your texts, and they can hear your conversations. It’s just a matter of who they want to listen to and who they don’t.”

 

This follows revelations that China’s “Salt Typhoon,” a group “closely linked to China’s Ministry of State Security,” has infiltrated US networks, lurking undetected “for more than a year.” While the Senator’s rhetoric is overplayed, at least as regards everyday users of little interest to China’s state spies, the raw facts are that content—whether voice, text or data—is either encrypted end-to-end or it’s not."

 

More here from Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/.../samsung-warns-iphone-and.../