WAMBUGU: How chat platforms protect your messages

Exchanging messages on chat apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram has become a communication staple for billions of people around the world.

Along with it, however, is the risk that someone, other than the intended recipient, can intercept the information and read it.

To shield their clients from cybercriminals, chat applications have implemented a raft of measures. Three years ago, WhatsApp implemented end-to-end encryption on its messaging.

That is, when the text is leaving your phone, it is scrambled so that only the sender and the receiver can understand what’s being said.

If cybercriminals hack the WhatsApp servers, or tap into your conversations when you are chatting over a poorly secured Wi-Fi, the hackers would not be able to interpret the messages.

In fact, WhatsApp does not store your messages on its server. The messages just pass through it.

The only likely way in which someone can access your WhatsApp message is if someone has your phone PIN, which he can use to open and access the content on your phone.

Another common chat app with prodigious security is Telegram. Communication on Telegram isn’t encrypted by default. To ascertain security, you need to make sure the Secret feature is activated.

Just like WhatsApp, conversations on Telegram aren’t stored on any server. Deleting communication from your mobile phone is a sure bet that it’s gone, unless a sophisticated and expensive forensic recovery is required.

Telegram however has a “self-destruct” feature. When you activate this feature, your messages are automatically deleted after a specified period of time.

You would specify the time you would like the messages destroyed. After destroying the content, no trace is left on both the sender and recipient’s phone. Neither WhatsApp nor Facebook Messenger has the ‘self-destruct’ feature.

It is worth noting that the process of creating a group chat for Telegram and WhatsApp is almost identical. The difference lies in managing the group.

In WhatsApp chat, new members can be added to the group only by the chat administrator, while in Telegram, this option is available to any member of the group, unless the person who created the group has appointed an administrator.

WhatsApp group messaging has a better control of group activity because unlike in Telegram, the group administrator can kick out undesirable members.

Facebook messenger has its communication encrypted too. The messages can’t be intercepted by hackers, demanded by the government, or spied on by Facebook staff.

But, if you really want nobody apart from the intended recipients to read your messages, the best solution would be to delete your messages.