An Apple iPhone. (Matt Durr | MLive.com)
Officials with the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are warning Americans to stop using texting and call services that don’t feature end-to-end encryption following an unprecedented cybersecurity attack. According to NBC News, the warning was issued Tuesday during a call with reporters featuring an unnamed senior FBI official and Jeff Greene, the executive assistant director for cybersecurity for CISA.
During the call, officials confirmed that Chinese hackers have attacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen Technologies in order to spy on customers of those companies. As a result of the attack, the hackers may now be able to access communications made through unencrypted text messages or phone calls.
In particular, the warning involves anyone sending texts between an iPhone and an Android device. While messages between iPhones — which show up as the blue iMessage on those phones — and Google messages sent between two Android phones are automatically encrypted, that’s not the case if each user has a different type of phone.
Messages sent between an iPhone and Android are vulnerable, leading officials to suggest those who need to send a message that way to use an encrypted service such as WhatsApp or Signal. While the data associated with encrypted messages can still be stolen by hackers, the encryption makes it impossible for the hacker to see what is in the data, according to Greene.
So far, officials have not said how many Americans are vulnerable thanks to the attack and Greene said there is no timetable for “when we’ll have full eviction” of the hackers.
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