{"id":10610,"date":"2017-05-01T13:00:15","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T17:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/?p=10610"},"modified":"2018-05-21T17:57:11","modified_gmt":"2018-05-21T21:57:11","slug":"secure-chat-app-crypto-serious-security-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/secure-chat-app-crypto-serious-security-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Secure Chat App Crypto Has Serious Security Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the age of creative viruses and phishing scams, you should make efforts to protect your privacy and personal information online, in addition to securing your various devices. This means that you should regularly scan your devices for malware, to make sure that you catch any of the latest threats before they can do any damage. Use DFNDR\u2019s Full Virus Scan to check your smartphone and SD card for malware:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"psafe:\/\/launch\/antivirus_full\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9829\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-9829\" src=\"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/run-security-scan-1-300x67.jpg\" alt=\"run-security-scan\" width=\"300\" height=\"67\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/run-security-scan-1-300x67.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/run-security-scan-1.jpg 353w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/center><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From cloud-based messaging to encrypted messaging apps, plenty of apps are aiming to fill this interest in privacy with new and innovative tools. But one app that aims to protect your privacy in fact does the opposite: it puts you more at risk. Here we\u2019ll talk about the Crypto app \u2014 and other encryption apps \u2014 and describe why they\u2019re actually putting your privacy at risk.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Read More: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/5-apps-can-keep-private-information-safe\/\"><b>5 Apps That Can Keep Your Private Information Safe<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>What is the Crypto App?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crypto turns whatever you type into a hash code. A hash code is a series of letters, numbers, and symbols that encrypt the text until a user wants to translate it back to plain text. Crypto helps you to encrypt your text messages and passwords so no one can read them without permission.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Is Crypto the First App of its Kind? <\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, there have been plenty of apps that encrypt messages this way or offer different kinds of text protection. For example, the app Confide has allegedly been used by White House and Washington D.C. Republicans to exchange messages without the possibility of leaks. Confide works by self-destructing messages after a certain length of time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>What\u2019s Wrong With Encrypted Apps? <\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Experts don\u2019t like encrypted apps like Crypto and Confide because, according to them, the app makers haven\u2019t allowed third-parties to examine the code. That means that these apps can be \u2014 and often are \u2014 susceptible to vulnerabilities. When examined by an outside auditor, the Confide app, for example, was found to have vulnerabilities that had existed for three years.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These vulnerabilities are a problem because so many use these apps to send personal and private information that they don\u2019t want to be discovered.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problems with the hottest new encryption apps, like Crypto right now, are that they often want to roll out so quickly that they don\u2019t have any oversight over the code that they\u2019re producing. That means that a similar problem with vulnerabilities like Confide could happen to any of these new \u201csecure\u201d messaging apps. Remember, audits are important.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Android users are always looking for new apps that will keep their information secure. But, as it turns out, Crypto is not the secure app we wanted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[30,210,4025,161],"class_list":["post-10610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security","tag-android","tag-apps","tag-dfndr","tag-virus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18396,"href":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10610\/revisions\/18396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}