{"id":6806,"date":"2014-11-20T10:28:42","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T15:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/?p=6806"},"modified":"2020-02-27T03:51:15","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T16:51:15","slug":"11_unsecure_messengers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/11_unsecure_messengers\/6806\/","title":{"rendered":"11 Unsecure Mobile and Internet Messaging Apps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week we took a look at the Electronic Frontier Foundation\u2019s secure messaging scorecard<\/a> and made a list of nine mobile and Internet messaging services that scored well on privacy and security<\/a>. This week we\u2019ll take a look at the services that scored poorly.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, if last week\u2019s list of messengers that put security and privacy first seemed obscure, then this week\u2019s list of apps and services that are sleeping on security will, unfortunately, seem all too familiar. For that reason, we\u2019ll focus primarily on the most popular messengers, though we\u2019ll also note the poor-scoring, less popular ones as well.<\/p>\n

11 mobile and Internet messaging services offering weak #security and #privacy controls<\/p>Tweet<\/a><\/blockquote>\n

Context<\/h3>\n

The EFF issued high or low grades to each service for seven categories. For our purposes, service providers earned failing grades when they only received zero, one or two \u2018yeses\u2019 in the following categories:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Is data encrypted in transit?<\/li>\n
  2. Is data encrypted so that even the service provider can\u2019t read it?<\/li>\n
  3. Can you identify the true identity of contacts?<\/li>\n
  4. Does the provider practice what is known as perfect forward secrecy, meaning crypto-keys are ephemeral so a stolen key won\u2019t decrypt existing communications?<\/li>\n
  5. Is the service\u2019s code open-source and available for public review?<\/li>\n
  6. Are cryptographic implementation procedures and processes documented?<\/li>\n
  7. Has there been an independent security audit in the last 12 months?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The seven points are designed to measure which services offer the best (or worst) protection against government surveillance, criminal snooping and corporate data collection. That said, neither the EFF nor Kaspersky Daily are officially denouncing or endorsing any of the programs discussed. The list merely indicates which applications are consistently not following best practices.<\/p>\n

    \n

    9 mobile and Internet messaging services offering strong #security<\/a> and #privacy<\/a> controls https:\/\/t.co\/30xBpa0kSb<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/GWm1XtGFs3<\/a><\/p>\n

    \u2014 Kaspersky (@kaspersky) November 15, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n