Secure your Whatsapp Data | Sohail khan

 Let us start right at the basic- the Whatsapp messages that you send

are said to be "end to end encrypted"

What does that mean?

Broadly speaking, encryption means converting any information into a secret code

which cannot be deciphered when read literally

That is, writing it in a secret language

To encrypt it

End to end encryption means that if you send a Whatsapp message to your friend

Then no one apart from you and your friend can read the message

As long as you have not shown your phone to a third person

If you keep your phone with yourself and show it to no one else,

Then no one, apart from you both can read the message

For comparison, SMS is not ended to end encrypted

When you send an SMS from one phone to another, it goes through a telecom operator

Telecoms like Jezz and Ufone can access your messages if they so wish to

Even if the government wants, it can access and understand

who wrote what and when

Similarly, email does also not end to end encrypted

Anyone can intercept the emails that you send to someone

To intercept means- You do see in movies,

that two people are on the phone, talking and a detective can hear their phone calland is "intercepting" what they both are talking

Similarly, for things that aren't end to end encrypted, a third person can intercept

and read your email or your message or hear your voice call

When you send a Whatsapp message to your friend, then Whatsapp encrypts that message

shuts it in a box and puts a lock on it

and the key to that lock is only with your friend

in your friend's phone

In fact, not even Whatsapp has the key

So, not even Whatsapp can read your messages

if they are end to end encrypted

This is the reason why, whenever you open any chat on Whatsapp, there's an option for security

where you can see the encryption option

Whatsapp shows you the security code

Whatsapp basically says that you can compare the security code with your friend

And this is the way to match your box with the key

to ensure that the right box and key are matched together

You can ensure that by matching the security code

So, now the question is what are the loopholes that allows a third person to read your messages

There are 2-3 loopholes

The first is that if someone snatches your phone physically,

or your phone gets stolen

He can open your phone and access your messages because

your phone has been physically stolen

In such a case, what can you do to ensure your security and avoid the loophole?

Put a passcode on your phone

Putting a passcode on your Whatsapp is even better

These days you can put in your face ID or touch ID in iPhones

You can put in biometric authentication so that another passcode is required to open Whatsapp

Even if someone steals your phone, first he should know the passcode of your phone

before he can access Whatsapp.

Another loophole is WhatsApp groups

For namesake, even Whatsapp groups are end to end encrypted

But if a person that you don't want is added, he can read your Whatsapp messages

What's even more problematic than that is that invite links of WhatsApp groups

can be sent somewhere else

Say you make someone else the admin of your Whatsapp group

he can invite someone else by sending the invite link

and if that invite link is pasted on some nonencrypted web site,

or sent through SMS or pasted publicly anywhere

then anyone can click on the invite link

and can join your Whatsapp groups

and read the chats of the Whatsapp groups

The simple solution to this is to avoid WhatsApp groups especially the ones in which you're not an admin

Anyone can join the Whatsapp group and read chats through an invite link of the group

The third loophole is the backup of your Whatsapp messages group

A lot of you would know that there is an option to backup chats on Whatsapp

You can keep a backup of all chat history on Google drive or iCloud

to access later

But most of you would not know that the backup involves the removal of end to end encryption

If you keep a backup on, you are keeping your messages at risk that a hacker

can hack into them or anyone else can read them

A simple solution to avoid this is to keep your backup off

Go to settings and keep all the different types of backups off

if you want to remain end to end encrypted on Whatsapp.

I'd like to tell you more tips to protect your data and your privacy

First- keep your phones updated to the latest software

because most of the times a loophole is found in a software

it is on older versions. Hackers target the older versions because

it is easier to look for loopholes there

Second- the auto-download option on Whatsapp that automatically downloads photos and videos

Keep it off. Because if you get a message from an unknown number,

say they send you a virus in the Whatsapp message

then it gets automatically downloaded and gets saved in the photo gallery

and the virus automatically gets downloaded to your phone

Also, keep all the apps on your phone because it is easier to look for loopholes in older versions

And whenever an app asks for permission to access your photos and contacts,

Then do not grant all the permissions

Because not all permissions are required all the time

If there is an app that does not have anything to do with your photos

but it asks for access to all your photos and contacts, then what is the need to grant that?

Deny that access. This is fairly easy to do on the iPhone

If you scroll down, you can see all the permissions that you have granted to the app

Another tip is to keep the two-factor authentication on in Whatsapp

This ensures that whenever you register with your phone number on Whatsapp,

To do this again, a PIN would be required

which Whatsapp will send as an SMS on your phone number and

and will ensure that the correct phone is used to use Whatsapp

and that no one else is installing Whatsapp using your phone number

Aside from Whatsapp, another tip is to use apps like Signal

In Signal, you can send messages with a time limit

Your messages will automatically get deleted after a certain time

Those messages would get deleted after a day without getting saved anywhere. Noone would be able to read them ever

In general, when you use the internet on your phone or computer,

then the best and easiest way to protect your privacy is to use a VPN

The messages and photos that you send on Whatsapp are encrypted

But when you use a VPN, whatever activity you do on the internet

is encrypted to the extent that you can even spoof your location

You can pretend to be in an entirely different country

and accessing the internet from there.