Signal is about as secure as it gets when it comes to private messaging with end-to-end encryption on Android phones and iPhones, but it may not seem that way when you read things like Signal messages have been cracked on an iPhone. If you’re an avid Signal user, that’s a concerning thought to be sure. That your Signal messages may not be as secure as you imagine. However, it’s not really quite like what you may be thinking.
Signal itself, meaning the app, is still as secure as it’s ever been. There aren’t any glaring issues or security flaws that users should be immediately worried about. However, there are still apparently ways for Signal messages to be harvested, and that’s what users should be looking at if they truly want their communication to stay private. In this particular case, the Signal messages being cracked by the FBI is a result of the way iOS handles things. It has nothing to do with Signal itself. So, there is a way you can ensure this isn’t something that is ever a concern going forward.
Signal messages being cracked on an iPhone is an iOS issue that can be sidestepped
According to the report from 404 Media (via Digital Trends), the cracked Signal messages didn’t come from the FBI cracking the app’s encryption or security. Instead, it has to do with how iOS handles notifications. Specifically, iOS stores a portion of incoming messages through the notifications, and the FBI were able to use this to grab some incoming messages through this method. The good news is that it is possible to prevent this kind of message harvesting.
You can either turn off the notification previews in the iOS settings, or you can make it so that Signal itself only shows a name or nothing at all when a notification comes in. This way you get an alert about an incoming message but it doesn’t show any details. Tweaking this in Signal itself is an assurance that you can still see notification previews for other apps. So, if you want that, you can manage what Signal notifications show individually. If you’re worried about privacy, it’s definitely recommended that you take one of those two actions.
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