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According to a new report, WhatsApp is still working on a way to secure chat backups in iCloud with password-protected encryption.
The Facebook-owned messenger platform started working on the special security feature in March 2020 – the reported WABetaInfo. Currently, WhatsApp users on iPhone can back up their chat history to iCloud. However, messages and media that users back up are not protected by WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption while in iCloud.
WhatsApp Backup: “Prevent unauthorized access”
As a reminder, Apple holds the "encryption keys" for iCloud and makes the backed-up data available to authorities upon request, as stated in its semi-annual transparency reports. According to this, the aforementioned WhatsApp backups are also visible. The new WhatsApp feature would prevent precisely this and give users the option to separately encrypt the chat backup and protect it with a password before uploading it to iCloud. According to the leak, WhatsApp describes the feature as follows:
To prevent unauthorized access to your iCloud Drive backup, you can set a password that will be used to encrypt future backups. This password will be required when you restore from the backup.
When activating the feature, the user confirms their phone number and selects a password that is at least eight characters long. A warning message then appears:
WhatsApp will not be able to help recover forgotten passwords.
It is not yet known when the new security function will be officially available. What is clear, however, is that such a feature is definitely being planned. (Photo by yalcin.sonat / Bigstockphoto)
