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WhatsApp Warns Free Google Drive Backups Are Not End-To-End Encrypted (zdnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the public-service-announcement dept.

On November 12th, WhatsApp users on Android will be able to back up their messages to Google Drive for free and it won't count towards Google Drive storage quotas. But, as WhatsApp warns, those messages will no longer be protected by end-to-end encryption. ZDNet reports: While Apple iOS users may elect to use iCloud backup storage options, Android users store theirs through Google Drive -- but alongside the changes, WhatsApp has reminded users that once communication, chat, and media is transferred away from the app, end-to-end encryption is no longer in place.

Some users may think that backup services will have the same level of protection as the app. However, this is not the case and the reminder is important for those interested in protecting their privacy. In WhatsApp support documents, this separation is now explicitly mentioned. "Media and messages you back up aren't protected by WhatsApp end-to-end encryption while in Google Drive," WhatsApp says.

38 comments

  1. What would you expect? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You use the world biggest spymaster's OS to "backup" your data to the spymaster's servers, and you expect you still have any privacy left?

    1. Re:What would you expect? by viperidaenz · · Score: 3, Interesting

      More like What would you expect? Your backup is there if you lose your data on your phone, including the encryption key.

      If you've lost the encryption key, an encrypted backup is completely useless.

    2. Re:What would you expect? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You ONLY EVER back up the encrypted data to any online or cloud service, NOT the key! You back up your encryption key locally to several other physical devices such as USB sticks.

      NEVER back up your key to a cloud service with the messages. That is idiotic and defeats the entire point of encryption.

    3. Re:What would you expect? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More like What would you expect? Your backup is there if you lose your data on your phone, including the encryption key.

      If you've lost the encryption key, an encrypted backup is completely useless.

      Why in the world would anybody back up a conversation that was meant [by design] to be ephemeral?

      I think I know what you're looking for, and it is called "electronic mail", or "email" for short.

  2. Some users are idiot millennials by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, you switch services and you think you get the same protection? Morons. You have to evaluate each service independently, except if you are an idiot millennial and you think everything on the internet is magic and safe. Thatâ(TM)s how we end up with public s3 buckets - morons.

    1. Re:Some users are idiot millennials by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm anxiously awaiting the next S3 bucket spill. I wonder what will come out.

  3. Why? Just to harm their users? by RhettLivingston · · Score: 2

    I often back up encrypted files to Google Drive. Why would WhatsApp bother to decrypt, backup, restore, reencrypt?

    Perhaps this is an export/import capability, not a backup, and they've named it wrong? They are two completely different things. Backup is intended for restoration to the same system and can use the system's encryption. Export is just that, exporting from the system for the purpose of allowing other apps to utilize the data.

    1. Re:Why? Just to harm their users? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Because WhatsApp doesn't hold the key. The private key is only stored on your phone. You can't restore a backup if you've lost your key.
      Storing the messages encrypted would render the backup useless if you lost your phone or factory reset it..

    2. Re:Why? Just to harm their users? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's easy, duh. Store the key in the cloud as well. /s

    3. Re:Why? Just to harm their users? by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1

      Ahhh. That is not a reasonable backup. No user should be required to compromise security to use their own backup.

      At the least they should provide a means of choosing to backup with encryption in place and a separate means to back up the private key. I would want to put the key in my key vault which is also backed up.

    4. Re:Why? Just to harm their users? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or just setting a separate password / passkey for the backup :)

    5. Re:Why? Just to harm their users? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At the least they should provide a means of choosing to backup with encryption in place and a separate means to back up the private key.

      Wouldn't work.
      The reason to encrypt it is because you don't trust the one storing the data. If you trusted them you wouldn't need encryption.
      If you let them manage the encryption software then they could just fetch the key if they turn malicious.

      The encryption process needs to be separate from the storage. It has to be done by you before handing the data over to the online storage provider.
      Otherwise it is just as secure as not using encryption at all. (Which is totally fine if you know that you can trust the storage provider.)

    6. Re:Why? Just to harm their users? by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1

      The data would simply be transferred already encrypted and I would assume the private key would be separately encrypted before transfer. As another responder suggested, this would require a backup password to be created.

      Or they could just provide a means of copying the private key to the copy buffer on the device. I'd have no trouble pasting it into my password vault interface. The vault itself is on google drive and thus backed up.

    7. Re:Why? Just to harm their users? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      WhatsApp only does end-to-end encryption of the messages being transferred. Once a message reaches your phone it is decrypted and stored in plaintext. There are some OS level protections to stop other apps reading them, but not at the file level.

      It appears they are just copying the file to Google Drive. They should add an extra layer of encryption, but they aren't really interested in that. They prioritise ease of use, which means easily restoring your messages years later when you will have long since forgotten any passwords.

      They care about mass surveillance, which is what the end-to-end encryption prevents. They don't care so much about legal warrants obtaining files on your Google Drive.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:Why? Just to harm their users? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WhatsApp only does end-to-end encryption of the messages being transferred. Once a message reaches your phone it is decrypted and stored in plaintext. There are some OS level protections to stop other apps reading them, but not at the file level.

      It appears they are just copying the file to Google Drive. They should add an extra layer of encryption, but they aren't really interested in that. They prioritise ease of use, which means easily restoring your messages years later when you will have long since forgotten any passwords.

      They care about mass surveillance, which is what the end-to-end encryption prevents. They don't care so much about legal warrants obtaining files on your Google Drive.

      It seems easy to make a utility within the app, to bundle the message in a sort of encrypted tarball before backing it up to the cloud.

    9. Re:Why? Just to harm their users? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      If you don't like how they've implemented it, you can just not use the feature as it's entirely optional.

      You obviously don't trust Google with unencrypted data, yet you're willing to copy your private keys to the system clipboard on your Android device.
      That's going to give all apps on your phone access to your private keys. Clipboard monitoring is a permission all apps are given.
      I have a download manager on my phone, it monitors the clipboard for URLs. There is nothing in the list of permissions to disable its clipboard access.

      While you can disable clipboard access for any app, it's not easy. android.permission.READ_CLIPBOARD is auto-granted to any app that requests it and only a few custom roms allow you to control it.

    10. Re: Why? Just to harm their users? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree with the parent that whatsapp (like signal) is very concerned with maintaining seemless usuability. Thays why, for example, accounts are identified by and authenticated via a phone number/sms. Its a corner stone of their design principles that users should not need to know any secrets let alone manage cryptographic keys. (If ur ok remembering a password ur probably better-off with something like Wickr anyway which allows truly pseudonyms accounts instead of forcing u to divulge a phone number or email address.)

      So although uploading an encrypted tarball is easy enough, securely recovering the decryption keys on a fresh devices without the users help seems impossible to me. I guess whatsapp felt the same way.

    11. Re:Why? Just to harm their users? by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1

      It's not really that I don't trust Google per se. The problem is that most of these organizations that hold your data will just turn your account over to someone who knows enough about you to answer all of the right questions or can compromise your 2FA - plus they must answer subpoenas and that doesn't require the police.

      About 12 years ago, I created a subpoena for ISP information that enabled me to prove that someone with a protection order against them was violating it and stalking his victim. I am neither an attorney or in any law enforcement. I simply looked up how to do it for a friend. The victim simply took the subpoena to the judge who stamped it, I hand-delivered it to the ISP, and had the information the next day (primarily what account and phone number had been given a specific dynamic IP at a specific time - which did prove by the weight of evidence standard that applied that the "anonymous" emails she was getting were coming from the stalker in violation of the protection order. Anyone involved in a civil case can do that.

      The experience taught me that subpoenas are far less limited than most imagine.

      Your point on the clipboard is disturbing (thank you for pointing it out). Can background apps access it? As in record everything that hits it?

      But that does not seem like a tool that would be used by your typical perpetrator. Most violations of people's security are done for personal reasons by people they know in simple, amateur ways. I don't actually keep data on my systems that would be of value to authorities or hackers that would perform a more sophisticated attack (or even have such data that I can think of). But the simplest little things are often a mountain instead of a molehill in a personal relationship - especially in messaging systems.

    12. Re:Why? Just to harm their users? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Yes, any application that is running (background or foreground) with the clipboard permission in their manafest will have access to its contents. There's probably some intent they can register too, to be notified of clipboard events.

  4. Duh. Don't do it. Remember Manafort. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He had his WhatsApp messages backing up to iCloud and since they were not encrypted and on a remote server .. Gov. got them pretty easy. I wouldn't back up to anything I didn't have direct control over and where I could encrypt messages once they are off the phone.

  5. Once? by aglider · · Score: 1

    Or maybe one's!

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
  6. Mueller probe by Orrin+Bloquy · · Score: 1

    Michael Cohen flipped in part because his WhatsApp communications were stored in the cloud unencrypted. I'm surprised the article didn't mention it.

    --
    "Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on /. and I must look smart."
    1. Re:Mueller probe by dohzer · · Score: 1

      If you don't want your messages in the open, you should destroy them soon after sending/receiving.

    2. Re:Mueller probe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So we've reached the level of obsession that we're now "surprised" when an article about something totally nonpolitical *doesn't* shoehorn in a Trump reference somewhere? Holy shit, talk about rent free...

  7. It's been like this forever by itsme1234 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just to be clear, the ONLY part that is new is "won't count towards Google Drive storage quotas".

    Nothing changes, you could (since probably before Whatsapp was really popular) store the un-encrypted backups on GDrive and it's off by default and you are warned that they aren't encrypted. Local backups aren't encrypted too by the way, unless you have some kind of device encryption.

    The end-to-end encryption is only on-the-fly. You start saving shit you need to trust the place you save it to. It's just like ssh, there is encryption for the connection and there is even an ephemeral symmetrical key agreed upon on the spot but you need to take care what to do with the stuff once you start logging or redirecting to files, etc.

    Most people don't care anyway. Many of the services aren't end-to-end encrypted (Email, SMS, Yahoo Messanger - rest in peace-, Google Talk or whatever they call it nowadays, Facebook Messenger unless you're using secret conversation or something and so on).

    Sure, they could encrypt the backups but the user would have to manage (think store safely) the keys. Do you really expect most users to be able to get the key they set/saved years ago when the old phone breaks (or is lost) and they need to restore the backup to a new phone? Especially if is a key with enough entropy (think a complicated passphrase) that they aren't supposed to be using anywhere else?

    1. Re: It's been like this forever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. Don't know why anyone thinks anything was encrypted on GDrive before? By allowing the chat backup to the cloud provider WhatsApp chats were never secure. You never know if the person you're talking to is going to upload your conversation for the sake of backup. Use Signal if you care about privacy. WhatsApp will not change this.

    2. Re:It's been like this forever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're 100% correct. WhatsApp not encrypting the backups was probably a business one. Google gives free storage and can read all your chats on Drive to target advertising to you. Whatsapp gets free storage.

      If you want to protect Google Drive properly, use an "at-rest' encryptor like Syncdocs https://www.syncdocs.com/how-to-set-up-google-drive-encryption/ or VeraCrypt https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Home.html

    3. Re:It's been like this forever by ctilsie242 · · Score: 1

      There are a number of cloud encryption solutions. Boxcryptor works fairly well, and Cryptomater is similar.

      The most iron clad is VeraCrypt, especially if you use keyfiles (and store the keyfiles on physically secure media.)

      As for device cloud backups with encryption, with iOS, you pretty much have to have a machine that you can back up to at home. iPhone device backups are free game, so if concerned, back up your iWhatzit on a local PC with solid encryption, and set a password on the backup.

      Android, you have more flexibility, provided you have root. Titanium Backup is one of the best backup apps period. It not just backs up encrypted, but does so in a smart manner. It generates a public/private keypair, attaches it to every backup file. The public key is used for encrypted backups, and the private key is encrypted with your password, all transparant, and it can store the backups on a cloud provider. That way, you not just know you have backups, but they are well protected.

  8. The title is misleading. by wuyongzheng · · Score: 1

    It sounds like Google Drive's network protocol is plaintext. The article actually means WhatsApp doesn't encrypt their backup files.

  9. uhh.. by SuperDre · · Score: 1

    Why aren't the backup's themselves encrypted? If there's end-to-end encryption (so encryption with about every whatsapp chat), you might expect a backup of your chats to also be encrypted.

    1. Re:uhh.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because the purpose of these backups is to restore your conversations if you lose your phone, and the whatsapp encryption key is stored only on the phone.

    2. Re:uhh.. by FunOne · · Score: 1

      They are. So is the message store on your phone. The problem is the key to encrypt the message store is generated during registration, and given during any re-registration. If you control the phone or phone number, and the backup, you can get the key and decrypt the message store easily.

      Media is not encrypted at rest on your phone or backup by WhatsApp.

      WhatsApp should add a salt or pin or something to the backup encryption to make it safer at rest. That would be straightforward and "solve" this "issue."

      --
      FunOne
    3. Re:uhh.. by ctilsie242 · · Score: 1

      If WhatsApp wanted true end to end security, they would have done a number of things:

      1: They would have stored messages encrypted on the device. Signal and TextSecure do this, where you can have all messages they store be stored with encryption independent from the OS. For maximum security, the app could print out a recovery key on setup for the user to write down and save somewhere, then use a composite key derived from a PIN/password and a key stored in the KeyChain or Android's KeyStore. That way, the user doesn't need a hairy password to type in, but the cloud backups are well protected, making brute force pointless.

      2: WhatsApp should allow import/export of the stored data, in a ZIP file with optional encryption. This way, stuff can be saved off and set aside, but still be accessible without the program, or re-imported.

      3: WhatsApp should have its own backup/sync option with encryption. That way, it offer the user to flag the stored data as "do not backup" to the backup process on the phone, ensuring that the data doesn't leave the phone unencrypted.

      I don't get why WhatsApp touts security, but doesn't figure in data at rest. Both Telegram and Signal have DAR protection.

  10. Spyware: Google Android competes with MS Win 10. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    8 reasons why smartphones are privacy nightmare (March 06, 2018)

    Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (August 4, 2015) Microsoft and Microsoft employees have full access to everything on every computer?

  11. To Hell with 'The Cloud' by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    Buy your own storage devices, keep your own data, put backups in a safe deposit box if you feel the need, but do not use 'The Cloud' to store anything. Reject 'non-ownership' philosophies; stop 'renting' everything and own things instead.

  12. Re:Spyware: Google Android competes with MS Win 10 by itsme1234 · · Score: 1

    8 reasons why smartphones are privacy nightmare [techradar.com]

    Seriously? "Malicious apps", "Wi-Fi tracking", "Lack of antivirus software", "Lack of security patches" (sweeping statement).

    Give me a break. Please go and find a better boogeyman than totally crazy complains like "lower adoption rates of antivirus software on a smartphone compared to full-fledged PCs".