Whatsapp’s upcoming updates to include password encrypted chat backups for Google Drive and iCloud

Whatsapp is reportedly working on its new update that will make your cloud backups more secure with a new password protection feature that will encrypting them. Your chats will then be available to one user; you. The work-in-progress feature of Whatsapp was reported by WABetaInfo last year, and on 8th March, WABI revealed screenshots of how it looks when presented in the service’s iOS and Android apps. One of the screenshots among them reads that to further enhance the security of your chat, and prevent unauthorized access to your iCloud Drive backup, users can set a password that will work as encryption for your future backups. According to the Company, the password will be required when you will restore from the backup.

To make the security as strict as possible, Whatsapp will then ask you a few more questions to verify that it is you. The app will ask the user to confirm their password, and once this is done, it will require you to set a password with a length of at least eight characters. Whatsapp warns you that it will not be able to recover the forgotten access controls.

Although all the WhatsApp chats are end-to-end encrypted, which means that they are only visible to you and the receiver, the company doesn’t guarantee this protection to be available on online backups stored on Google Drive and iCloud. The iCloud service providers consider this to be their ultimate responsibility to secure the backups of your chats; once you have turned on these servers. Not only this, but these service providers have also reached law enforcement authorities with valid search warrants. The option to encrypting the backups with a password is a great step taken by the company to prevent the spies from reaching your chat history without your consent.

• The chat database is already encrypted now (excluding media), but the algorithm is reversible and it's not end-to-end encrypted.
• Local Android backups will be compatible with this feature.

The chat DB and media will be encrypted using a password that only you know. https://t.co/WAliLUnF18

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) March 8, 2021

This new feature is followed by tremendous hatred and opposition faced by the Company from users and competitive companies upon its new privacy policy. This has led to fear among the folks of getting their data stolen by the company; more than its parent company Facebook. As a result, users have begun to explore other options of messaging services like Telegram and Signal, which appear to take advantage of this.

When contacted by the media houses, the messaging company declined to comment on its unannounced feature yet. However, WABetaInfo manages to get the information regarding all the unearthing features of the technology companies - before they are officially announced by them.

Count yourself unlucky if you are an iOS user, because Whatsapp doesn’t support local backups in an iPhone while allows it in Android. It seems to be an act of revenge by Whatsapp of the fight between the two giant companies; Facebook and iPhone.

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