Starting today, Android and iOS users around the world can start enjoying the new end-to-end encrypted backups that are stored on Google Drive (Android) and iCloud (iOS).
In 2018 the FBI managed to access the messages of Paul Manafort, former Donald Trump campaign manager accused of money laundering. However, the agency did not access this information by intercepting the messages because end-to-end encryption already existed, but instead did so by accessing its backup on iCloud.
WhatsApp assured that with this new feature, more than 100 billion messages that are exchanged on the platform by more than 2 billion users every day will be protected.
“You will not find another messaging service of this scale that has a similar level of security for messages, multimedia files, voice messages, video calls and backup copies of its users’ chats,” the company mentioned in a release.
How does this option work?
WhatsApp clarifies that when creating an end-to-end encrypted backup it saves all messages and files in the cloud with a 64-digit encryption password that only you know. In fact, the user can change the password as long as he has the current password.
If this security key is lost, it will be impossible to recover the backup copy along with its content, so you must store this password in a safe place.
Encrypted backups can be enabled and disabled from the application settings.