Whatsapp is reportedly working to give more security to the chat backups. They are working on introducing a password protection feature that will encrypt the chat backup. This feature will make the chat available only to the user. WABetaInfo reported this feature a year ago in the work-in-progress. Today it has shared the screenshots of how the feature might look in Andriod and iOS Apps.
• The chat database is already encrypted now (excluding media), but the algorithm is reversible and it’s not end-to-end encrypted.
• Local Android backups will be compatible with this feature.The chat DB and media will be encrypted using a password that only you know. https://t.co/WAliLUnF18
— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) March 8, 2021
In the Tweet by WABetaInfo, they mentioned the algorithm can be reversible and is not end-to-end encryption. One of the screenshots says, “To prevent unauthorised access to your iCloud Drive backup, you can set a password that will be used to encrypt future backups”. Another screenshot reads, “This password will be required when you restore from the backup”. Then the app asks for a password that is at least eight characters long. You can see another warning saying, “WhatsApp will not be able to recover forgotten passwords”.
Although WhatsApp chats have end-to-end encryption that means only the user and sender can see the message. This feature doesn’t work with the cloud backup on Google Drive or iCloud. The security of these backups is responsible only by cloud providers.
These latest reports about the feature come only because of the bad reputation that WhatsApp has got from privacy policy update. However, WhatsApp says that this recent policy update will not affect the security of the user’s messages. Its rivals have seen a drastic rise as users started looking for other options.
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