Recently in the month of October 2024 a huge cyberattack against the USA telecommunication firms was reported by the Wall Street Journal. The Director General of NSA Timothy Haugh accused China of this cyberattack. While talking to NBC News he claimed that the hackers were supported by China. Obviously the Chinese government has denied.
Not only the Director General of NSA but also FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also claimed that the hackers are connected with the people of Republic of China. They had invaded the telecom infrastructure of the USA for a broad cyber spying campaign.
The agencies issued a statement that “limited numbers of individuals are involved in governmental or political activities. Also the agencies said that “Stolen were customer call records data and specific information that was subject to US law enforcement request pursuant to court orders”.
Another point that the officials and the agencies raised regarding the smartphone users. The officials said the text messages between Apple and Android devices are vulnerable. This means that they are not encrypted and secure. The iPhone to iPhone or Android to Android text messages are secured as they are encrypted.
A press conference was held on December 3, 2024, the CISA executive assistant director for cybersecurity Jeff Greene said “Encryption is your friend, whether it is on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communications, even if the adversary is able to intercept the data. If it is encrypted it will make it impossible or really hard for them to detect it. So our advice is try to avoid using plain text”.
The claim to avoid sending text messages was usually true. But the FBI’s definition of “text message” was more tough than the general public. The actual cell phone operating systems iOS and Android, both have a safe messaging system. The FBI recommended and warned the public not to send text from iPhone to Android or vice versa.
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The officials suggest instead of sending text messages, use an app that gives more responsibly managed encryption. The most secure encryption is end-to-end encryption. Previously, the FBI has criticized end-to-end encryption because sometimes it can slow down the agency’s effort to access information in locked devices.
In a briefing a senior FBI official said “Hackers are able to steal a huge amount of data and information. But they cannot steal a voice or real text message”.
Apart from the guidance and assistance of private companies for reaching the attacks, officials also recommended that the people who are concerned about their security should use encrypted messaging systems.
On Wednesday, December 4,2024 Arvil Haines The Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Council, Rosenworcel, the FBI and CISA had a briefing for the US Senate. The US senators were updated on the long running investigation.
There are various reports that said large hacks were not fully resolved. These cyberattacks were a try to get access to private communications from government officials.
The most simple solution to save from these cyberattacks is the use of apps with end-to-end encryption. Apple’s iMessage and Android’s Google Message use end-to-end encryption. But when an iPhone user sends a message to an Android user then the messages are encrypted using a different way and method. Usually the method is RCS which is more vulnerable. For such cases, third-party apps with end-to-end encryption is the best and most secure choice such as Whatsapp.
