There are certain issues where users have reported not receiving the login code to enter and log in to use the Telegram application. Late last year, the security firm that develops software to exfiltrate data from devices through a physical connection boasted that it had added Signal to its target list. Private groups protect your group names, group membership, group messages, and even the group avatar with end-to-end encryption.”īut perhaps the clearest illustration of the different security approaches came from Signal’s handling of Cellebrite this week. “Nobody ever invited Big Tech to join a group chat,” Signal tweeted this week, in a thinly veiled attack on WhatsApp, “but they still hang around and know what's going on. The messaging battle continues and promises to heat up again next month, when Facebook’s forced change of terms for WhatsApp users kicks in. “Given that Telegram can be used to distribute malicious files,” Sharabi warns, “or as a command and control channel for remotely controlled malware, we fully expect that additional tools that exploit this platform will continue to be developed in the future.”Īs such, this attack vector needs shutting down or organisations should look hard at prohibiting Telegram on their networks too mitigate the risk, and the implications from that would be dire for Telegram and its hundreds of millions of users.

This is a known issue and its bots are clearly rife for abuse, leveraging Telegram’s good name to evade individual and organisational security measures. Even so, I reached out to Telegram ahead of publication to ask whether any mitigations are going to be added to the platform. Switching from WhatsApp to Telegram, as I’ve said before, makes no sense as a security measure.Ĭheck Point says it did not disclose the latest findings to Telegram, given there is no vulnerability in the messenger’s software-this is exploitation of a legitimate function for malicious purposes. Users must always remember that Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted by default, and as such its security is weaker than WhatsApp and iMessage, to say nothing of Signal.

There are other security risks with Telegram, of course, impacting the more than half-billion users the platform has now secured.

Telegram for my phone