With Chinese hackers potentially lurking in US telecom networks, the FBI—a longtime critic of full end-to-end encryption—tells people to use it on their phones anyway.
As Chinese hackers potentially lurk in US networks, the FBI is advising the public to adopt encryption—a technology the agency has long demonized.
A senior FBI official mentioned the tip in a call with journalists on Tuesday while discussing how China’s „Salt Typhoon“ group has compromised multiple US telecommunication networks.
„People looking to further protect their mobile device communications would benefit from considering using a cellphone that automatically receives timely operating system updates, responsibly managed encryption, and phishing resistant MFA (multi-factor authentication) for email, social media, and collaboration tool accounts,” the official said.
In the same call, Jeff Greene, an official with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), added: “Encryption is your friend, whether it is on text messaging or you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communication.”
End-to-end encryption is a powerful tool that can prevent spying because even if the data is stolen, it will be scrambled and thus unreadable to hackers.
