In this article, we cover all these questions in detail.
What is End to End Encryption & How it Works in WhatsApp?
Encryption is a way to hide actual information. Suppose you type a sentence “I LOVE INDIA” nowhere for encryption purpose you increase an alphabet letter in your syntax. means A converts into B, D converts into E. So now our actual sentence convert into this
I LOVE INDIA –> J MPWF JOEJB
Here you can see our encrypted sentence is “J MPWF JOEJB“.
Are you able to understand this encrypted sentence? No
Here this is basic encryption which a person can decrypt if he works on this a few times. In computer science, Many encryption algorithms are developed. An algorithm is a setup of rules which executed one by one. In the above example, we only set a single rule (increase one letter in the alphabet). But Algorithms are too powerful which creates a large unreadable format. For Example md5 encryption algorithm
I LOVE INDIA in md5 is 5a060cff328160014ca78cee07c8c3a1
Here you can the result string is not a human readable format.
Here many algorithms provide encryption as well as decryption, for security reasons they also offer a SALT facility. SALT is a custom user string that impacts the working of encryption and also affects encryption results. For example, user1 salt is 512 & user2 salt is 421. Now both encrypt the same message but the encryption result is different due to their SALT.
Whatsapp End to End Encryption Working:
In the above example, you learn how encryption works. WhatsApp follows the same encryption and decryption method (Algorithm) to process chat messages but SALT is different for every user. You may notice if you complete uninstall WhatsApp OR Install WhatsApp on another device then your security token will change. and your contacts also see that your security token changed. Every message which you send is encrypted with the help of your security token and decrypted on the recipient’s device with the help of his token and the WhatsApp encryption algorithm is very good and very hard to decrypt without a user token and WhatsApp also deletes the message once delivered to the recipient.
Here If a WhatsApp employee wants to see your message in the database then this is in an encrypted format so he cannot understand the actual message. So here we can say WhatsApp provide the best end to end encription chat service.
Why WhatsApp chat leaks Even after strong Encryptions:
In the above para, we explain how the end to end encryption works in WhatsApp. As we all know WhatsApp provides strong encryption on chats but still news of chat leaks comes on the internet. Here we try to understand why this is happening. As we all know WhatsApp offers its services for different devices which may run on Android, iOS, Windows, Blackberry, KaiOS, etc. Here WhatsApp dependent on Operating system services. For example, iOS provide a service to the developer which not available on Android. Then what?
So WhatsApp needs to take care of all of these things.
WhatsApp’s major drawback is, they don’t offer a cloud chat backup service. They are dependent on the third-party cloud provider.
1. For Android – Depends on Google Drive
2. For iOS – Depends on iCloud
- The chat which is backup by the WhatsApp application is not end-to-end encrypted. So if someone has your Google account access then he can download your chat backup and see your chats.
- If someone has your phone access then he can also access your chat backup from the file manager and can easily move/copy the entire backup from your device to his device via any file transfer apps like Xender, SHAREit, etc.
- If someone has your phone then he can take screenshots and move all these screenshots to his mobile via any file transfer apps like Xender, SHAREit, etc.
- If someone installed a spy app on your mobile. Through the spy app, he can see all your message and other activities like Instagram chats, basic messages, messenger chats, hike chats, and many other things. For more about spy apps read from here.
Here we share possible ways which are used to check your WhatsApp messages without your permission.
Is Moving to another App like Signal to protect our privacy is a good decision?
As of now, WhatsApp is offering end to end encryption in your personal and group chats. So there is no reason to change your app. However, suppose you go for the Signal App then what if the signal App owner convert his product non-profit to company and sell this entire business to Google or Microsoft. and the next owner change again the privacy policy. Then what you do?
Do you know, WhatsApp and Signal App founded by the same person.
As of now, WhatsApp is a good option because they still providing end to end encryption. You just to need to aware of some basic tech tips to secure your google account like 2-factor authentication, and also enable google play protect service in your Android mobile.