America’s top cybersecurity and law enforcement officials made a coordinated push Tuesday to raise awareness about cyber threats from foreign ac

FBI Warns Americans to Start Using Encrypted Messaging Apps

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2024-12-04 18:30:04

America’s top cybersecurity and law enforcement officials made a coordinated push Tuesday to raise awareness about cyber threats from foreign actors in the wake of an intrusion of U.S. telecom equipment dubbed Salt Typhoon. The hackers are linked to the Chinese government and they still have a presence in U.S. systems, spying on American communications, in what Sen. Mark Warner from Virginia has called “the worst hack in our nation’s history.”

Officials with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and FBI went so far as to urge Americans to use encrypted messaging apps, according to a new report from NBC News, something that’s ostensibly about keeping foreign hackers out of your communications. But using apps like Signal has received a lot more attention in recent weeks as Donald Trump is slated to take power on Jan. 20, 2025. Trump has nominated Kash Patel to become head of the FBI, a jaw-droppingly authoritarian decision given Patel’s promises to punish Trump’s political enemies and imprison journalists.

“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,” Jeff Greene, executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA, said on a press call Tuesday according to NBC News.

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