• Turret3857@infosec.pub
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    10 days ago

    genuine question from someone who isnt a cybersec major, wouldn’t E2EE chats and quantum resistant encrypted files negate most targeted government cyber attacks? Like I’m aware vulnerabilities will exist and you can take infrastructure offline, but they (they being any government) want the data of the opposing gov’t right? Doesn’t encryption make it stupidly easy to protect? Or are my encrypted backups & Signal chats not as safe as I thought they would be?

    • boatswain@infosec.pub
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      10 days ago

      Signal, Whatsapp, etc are great, as long as I don’t have access to your phone and password, right? Likewise, what if your phone’s operating system has a critical vulnerability that the OS makers don’t know about (AKA a zero day) that can allow a complete remote takeover of your device after a single click on a text message? It didn’t end well for Jamal Kashoggi: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/12/middleeast/khashoggi-phone-malware-intl/index.html

      E2EE is great for data in transit, and full disk encryption is great for if someone steals your locked device. Neither will help if you have compromised code running on your machine, though.

      • Turret3857@infosec.pub
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        10 days ago

        I see, that makes sense. I feel like I should have been able to figure that out but my puzzle solving skills aren’t the best lol