Security News
The CEO of Sky Global - which sold encryption chat software with customized smartphones - has come out fighting after Uncle Sam charged him with knowingly assisting the international drug smuggling trade. "There is no question that I have been targeted, as Sky Global has been targeted, only because we build tools to protect the fundamental right to privacy. The unfounded allegations of involvement in criminal activity by me and our company are entirely false."
The indictments were presented Friday against Jean-Francois Eap, the head of Sky Global, and Thomas Herdman, a former high-level distributor of Sky Global devices, the department said Friday. "The indictment alleges that Sky Global generated hundreds of millions of dollars providing a service that allowed criminal networks around the world to hide their international drug trafficking activity from law enforcement," said Acting US Attorney Randy Grossman.
The US Department of Justice has indicted the CEO of encrypted messaging company Sky Global, and an associate for allegedly aiding criminal enterprises avoid detection by law enforcement. Sky Global is the developer of an encrypted chat app known as Sky ECC that claims to be the "Most secure messaging app available anywhere in the world today."
Police said Wednesday they had arrested at least 80 people and carried out hundreds of raids in two European countries after shutting down an encrypted phone network used by organised crime groups. Police launched a top-secret operation to crack the SKY ECC network - which operates over a special phone - and "As of mid-February, authorities have been able to monitor the information flow of approximately 70,000 users," the Hague-based law agencies said.
Image: Sky ECC. European law enforcement authorities have made a large number of arrests after a joint operation involving the monitoring of organized crime communication channels after "Unlocking" Sky ECC chat's encryption. The investigation started after Belgium police seized mobile phones from criminals who used Sky ECC. After "Unlocking" the chat platform's encryption, investigators have been able to monitor communications between roughly 70,000 Sky ECC users.
After a three-year review process, India has announced strict regulations for instant chat services, social network operators, and video-streaming companies. India's Internet Freedom Foundation has slammed this traceability requirement, claiming it will be impossible to implement strong end-to-end encryption as a result, and thus could harm privacy.
Cybersecurity researchers on Monday disclosed details of a now-patched flaw in the Telegram messaging app that could have exposed users' secret messages, photos, and videos to remote malicious actors. Following responsible disclosure, Telegram addressed them in a series of patches on September 30 and October 2, 2020.
Telegram has fixed a security issue where self-destructing audio and video files were not being deleted from user's macOS devices as expected. Telegram offers a 'Secret Chat' mode that offers increased privacy than the standard chats.
Popular messaging app Telegram fixed a privacy-defeating bug in its macOS app that made it possible to access self-destructing audio and video messages long after they disappeared from secret chats. Unlike Signal or WhatsApp, conversations on Telegram by default are not end-to-end encrypted, unless users explicitly opt to enable a device-specific feature called "Secret chat," which keeps data encrypted even on Telegram servers.
Bugs in several messaging/video chat mobile apps allowed attackers to spy on targeted users's surroundings. The vulnerabilities - in Signal, Google Duo, Facebook Messenger, JioChat, and Mocha - could be triggered by simply placing a call to the target's device - no other action was needed.