FBI Warns iPhone And Android Users—Stop Sending Texts

By Recardo Mendez Published on December 04, 2024

Timing is everything. Just as Apple’s adoption of RCS had seemed to signal a return to text messaging versus the unstoppable growth of WhatsApp, then along comes a surprising new hurdle to stop that in its tracks. While messaging Android to Android or iPhone to iPhone is secure, messaging from one to the other is not.

Now even the FBI and CISA, the US cyber defense agency, are warning Americans to use responsibly encrypted messaging and phone calls where they can. The backdrop is the Chinese hacking of US networks that is reportedly “ongoing and likely larger in scale than previously understood.” Fully encrypted comms is the best defense against this compromise, and Americans are being urged to use that wherever possible.

The network cyberattacks, attributed to Salt Typhoon, a group associated with China’s Ministry of Public Security, has generated heightened concern as to the vulnerabilities within critical US communication networks. The reality is different. Without fully end-to-end encrypted messaging and calls, there has always been a potential for content to be intercepted. That’s the entire reason the likes of Apple, Google and Meta advise its use, highlighting the fact that even they can’t see content.

An FBI senior official advised “using a cell phone that automatically receives timely operating system updates, responsibly managed encryption and phishing resistant MFA for email, social media and collaboration tool accounts.”

As reported by Politico, CISA’s Jeff Greene added to this, “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’.”

In terms of what is known about the Salt Typhoon attacks thus far, while the FBI official warned that widespread call and text metadata was stolen in the attack, expansive call and text content was not. But “the actors compromised private communications of a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in the government or political activities. This would have contained call and text contents.”

Greene reportedly suggested “that Americans should use encrypted apps for all their communications,” (1,2). That means stop sending texts iPhone to Android, albeit iMessages and Google Messages are fully encrypted while on those platforms.

Greene 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.”

An alert into the ongoing telco network hacks jointly issued by FBI, CISA and NSA—as well as other Five Eyes agencies—was released on Tuesday.

The lack of end-to-end encryption to protect cross-platform RCS, the successor to SMS, is a glaring omission. It was highlighted in Samsung’s recent celebratory PR release on the success of RCS, which included the caveat that only Android to Android messaging is secured. It remains a stark irony that while Google and Apple separately advise Android and iPhone users to rely on end-to-end encryption, when it comes to RCS it’s still missing, with no timeline in sight for a fix.

The mobile standard setter, GSMA, and Google have said encryption will be coming to RCS, but there’s no firm date yet. That assurance seemed a response to the backlash post Apple’s update with the media pickup on the security issue. Apple—whose iPhone ecosystem includes ever more fully encryption, has not commented.

My advice remains to use WhatsApp over RCS for cross-platform messaging until such a time as RCS adds full encryption between iPhones and Androids. Once you step outside Apple’s or Google’s walled garden, the security protections fall away. With good secured platforms available, it’s not worth taking the risk.

There are other fully encrypted platforms as well—notably Signal, the best of the bunch, albeit with a much smaller install base. Even Facebook Messenger now fully encrypts messaging, making standard SMS/RCS texting even more an outlier. Signal and WhatsApp also enable fully encrypted voice and video calls cross platform, and so they should also be your default choices given this FBI/CISA warning.

Ironically, Apple’s iOS 18.2, due this month, will enable iPhone users to change the default messenger on their devices from iMessage. Timing really is everything.

Updated on December 4 with additional comments from the FBI.

Recardo Mendez

Sports Reporter

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