With our lives continually moving more and more online, it’s no wonder our focus is increasingly on data security. This includes our personal details, online storage options and our chat history. WhatsApp has a chat backup option that is capable of storing your chats in multiple locations, including Google Drive. The problem with this is that if someone gets your backup file, they don’t need any authentication to access the contents. Soon though, that will change according to WhatsApp Beta Info.

What this means for users is that even if your chat backup is obtained, unless they know (or can guess) your password – the contents are safe. It does look like this is a password-based — not SSO with Google or Facebook authentication — option. So if you choose to use this option, make sure you store your password securely!

WhatsApp beta info has a very strong history of being accurate with leaks and their analysis of code. So the likelihood of this being delivered to users is pretty strong, the only question is when will we see it?

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Les

WhatsApp has no security.

Yeah, if you believe the PR hype it has e2e encryption. But this is a farce.

WhatsApp sends your private metadata out in an unencrypted channel. That’s how WhatsApp can use that data to share with Facebook and sell it to advertisers. They simply could not access the metadata if it were e2e encrypted.

So that amounts to WhatsApp having a back door, where your contacts, location, call and message history leaks out.

Better to switch to the nonprofit Signal Private Messenger, where everything really is end-to-end encrypted.