Security News > 2021 > September > WhatsApp to offer end-to-end encrypted backups in iCloud, Google Drive with user-managed keys

Facebook's WhatsApp on Friday said users will soon be able to store end-to-end encrypted backups of their chat history on Google Drive in Android or Apple iCloud in iOS, with an option to self-manage the encryption key.

"We're adding another layer of privacy and security to WhatsApp: an end-to-end encryption option for the backups people choose to store in Google Drive or iCloud," said Facebook supremo Mark Zuckerberg in a missive on his platform.

WhatsApp, which boasts two billion users who send over 100 billion messages a day, has beaten Apple to market, if speculation about its intention to offer encrypted iCloud backups proves true.

"After a backup is encrypted, it is stored in the third party storage. Because the backups are encrypted with a key not known to Google or Apple, the cloud provider is incapable of reading them."

One involves a user-supplied password - unknown to WhatsApp or third-party backup services - that retrieves the user's actual encryption key from a Backup Key Vault based on a hardware security module in a WhatsApp data center.

The other skips the password and requires the user to supply a 64-digit encryption key, without the involvement of the HSM Backup Key Vault, to access any encrypted backups.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/09/11/whatsapp_cloud_encryption/