FBI warning: ‘Encryption is your friend.’ Avoid texting at all costs

The rise of encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp is becoming critical, as Apple’s adoption of RCS/SMS faces backlash for leaving messages between Android and iPhone unsecured—a vulnerability highlighted by warnings from U.S. cybersecurity agencies amidst escalating threats from Chinese hackers targeting American networks.

Timing is key. Just as Apple’s embracing of RCS (Rich Communication Services like instant messaging – formerly SMS) hinted at a comeback for traditional text messaging amidst WhatsApp’s unstoppable rise, an unexpected roadblock has emerged to derail it. The catch? Messages between Android and iPhone remain unsecured. Now, even the FBI and CISA—America’s top cyber watchdogs—are urging everyone to switch to fully encrypted messaging and calls whenever possible.

In the background, we have the Chinese hackers, breaking into US networks at a rate which is apparently “ongoing and likely larger in scale than previously understood.” Short forms of communication or comms like Whatsapp are being hailed as the best defence against this as messages are encrypted unlike RCS/SMS texting and Americans are being urged to use this as much as possible.

Non-encrypted messages from iPhone to Android open to cyberattacks

Salt Typhoon is the biggest culprit for network cyberattacks. Linked to China’s Ministry of Public Security, there have been growing concerns about the safety of critical US communications, particularly generated by the way Americans might be choosing to communicate. Without fully end-to-end encrypted messaging services and calls, data sent between mobile phones is potentially insecure.

Apple, Google and Meta are all encouraging American users and the worldwide mobile phone population to use encrypted forms of messaging to prevent this from happening. CISA’s Jeff Greene added that he was “strongly urging Americans to ‘use your encrypted communications where you have it… we definitely need to do that, kind of look at what it means long-term, how we secure our networks’.”

So far, the Salt Typhoon cyberattacks have included widespread call and text metadata being stolen, while expansive call and text content was not, although the private communications of several individuals, mainly related to politics, was put at risk.

Advice for Americans and world: use encrypted services like WhatsApp

Greene has urged Americans to use encrypted apps for all communications and especially when communicating between iPhone to Android. He added that “our suggestion, what we have told folks internally, is not new here: encryption is your friend, whether it’s on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communication. Even if the adversary is able to intercept the data, if it is encrypted, it will make it impossible.”

Many are highlighting how end-to-end encryption to protect cross-platform RCS,  which is the new form of SMS, has been totally overlooked. This means that despite both Google and Apple encouraging their users to engage with encryption services, it is still missing for cross-platform text messaging services.

In response to this, GSMA, mobile standard setter and Google have confirmed that encryption will be coming to RCS (formerly SMS), but there is no fixed date. In the meantime, the advice is to rely on WhatsApp over RCS for cross-platform messaging until full encryption between iPhones and Androids for RCS is established.  Both Apple and Google have secure encryption and protective services but communicating between platforms opens up a whole layer of risk unless you engage with solid platforms like Signal or Facebook Messenger, which like Whatsapp, enable encrypted messaging services.  Apple’s latest software update, iOS 18.2, due this month, will offer options to users to change the default messenger on their devices from iMessage.

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