Signal is Secure, as Proven by Hackers

upstart writes:

Signal is secure, as proven by hackers:

On August 15, the Signal team reported that unknown hackers attacked users of the messenger. We explain why this incident demonstrates Signal's advantages over some other messengers.

According to the statement issued by Signal, the attack affected around 1900 users of the app. Given that Signal's audience runs to more than 40 million active users a month, the incident impacted only a tiny share of them. That said, Signal is used predominantly by those who genuinely care about the privacy of their correspondence. So even though the attack affected a minuscule fraction of the audience, it still reverberated around the information security world.

As a result of the attack, hackers were able to log in to the victim's account from another device, or simply find out that the owner of such and such phone number uses Signal. Among these 1900 numbers, the attackers were interested in three specifically, whereupon Signal was notified by one of these three users that their account had been activated on another device without their knowledge.

On the pages of Kaspersky Daily, we have often talked about the fact that Signal is a secure messenger, and yet it was successfully attacked. Does that mean that its renowned security and privacy are just a myth? Let's see exactly what the attack looked like and what role Signal actually played in it.

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