Oxygen Forensics Claims WhatsApp’s iCloud Backups Encryption Could be Circumvented

WhatsApp just made its iCloud backups encrypted making the app safer to use. By adding a new security feature to its iCloud backup, the company closed a potential loophole in its end-to-end encryption. It assures users that their messages are kept private.

The WhatsApp iCloud backup encryption has been introduced a few months ago. But the company made the new feature known only recently, Digital Trends reported. But a security company claims the encryption could still be circumvented.

Oxygen Forensics, the security firm, names a specific scenario in which the WhatsApp iCloud backup encryption circumvented. It is when a hacker has access to the SIM card with the same cellphone number that WhatsApp uses to verify and generate the encryption key. Oxygen says the police with access to a SIM card could potentially use the card to gain access to iCloud-stored encrypted messages.

Tech Crunch reported that the WhatsApp iCloud backup encryption was added in 2016. However, the addition was made known after Oxygen Forensics, a third-party company that supplies mobile and cloud hacking tools, claims to have circumvented the encryption system.

The WhatsApp iCloud backup encryption was likely added in the light of the high-profile FBI battle against Apple in 2016 when the Federal Bureau of Investigation sought the court’s intervention to gain access to a locked iPhone. Because of Apple’s resistance, the FBI paid instead a third-party company to hack into the iPhone.

However, MacRumors explains that end-to-end encryption was long available on WhatsApp’s messaging service. However, it excluded backups of messages on iCloud until it introduced the WhatsApp iCloud backup encryption. The move would ensure that the backups of messages are still encrypted even if Apple receives a court subpoena or there is an unauthorized iCloud hack which could potentially permit access to the backups messages of WhatsApp.