Viber announced Tuesday that it will begin rolling out end-to-end encryption for all of its one-to-one and group conversations, including video, voice and text messages.
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Founded out of Cyprus in 2010, Viber today claims more than 700 million users globally across iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and desktop. It will then ask for a four digit PIN or, for iOS users, provide an option for a fingerprint.
Viber’s move to add more security comes after a wave of companies, like its competitor WhatsApp, are ramping up their encrypted services in the midst of an ongoing war between Apple and the Department of Justice.
We take our users’ security and privacy very seriously, and it’s critical to us that they feel confident and protected when using Viber. The grey lock means there’s end-to-end encryption, while a green lock means the contact has been verified using an authentication key and encryption is running, and a red lock means the authentication key has changed – whether due to someone changing their phone, or something more sinister like a hacker. Like Apple and the iPhone, Viber itself won’t have access to users’ passcodes, and therefore won’t be able to hand them over to, say, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The hidden chats are invisible to everyone except the users who hide them, granting an extra level of privacy for users who might share one device with family members or coworkers. This means that the selected contact’s authentication key will be monitored for future changes so users can be certain that they’re talking to the right person at all times. This may indicate a change to their primary phone or a potential man-in-the-middle attack in progress. To solve a possible breach state, the participant needs to be re-trusted.
Once you choose to hide a specific chat in a group or in a personal conversation, those chats will disappear from your screen, but won’t affect the other party.
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Users can hide a conversation by tapping the info screen for a given discussion. “Today we are taking another step in this direction by making your private communication even safer through end-to-end encryption, hidden chats and message deletion”, Viber COO Michael Shmilov said in a blogpost. Viber can be used on iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phones and tablets, Windows Phone, Windows®, Windows 8®, Mac, Linux and Symbian devices over mobile or WiFi connections.
