US cybersecurity agency CISA is urging senior U.S. politicians and high-ranking officials to lock down their mobile devices following the ongoing Chinese-backed data breaches at at least eight major telecom providers, reports MacTrast.
The CISA issued an advisory on Wednesday, warning “highly-targeted officials,” including those in government, to enable advanced security features, such as Apple’s Lockdown Mode, to limit their smartphone’s overall attack surface.
According to MacTrast, officials are also being urged to switch to end-to-end encrypted messaging apps, like Signal. On December 3, CISA warned Americans to use fully encrypted messaging and phone calls where they can, reported Forbes.
In other words, iPhone to iPhone texting is okay. Android to Android texting is okay. iPhone to Android and Android to iPhone isn’t.In this light, Apple’s adoption of RCS poses problems. There’s a lack of end-to-end encryption to protect cross-platform RCS. This was highlighted in Samsung’s recent celebratory PR release on the success of RCS, which included the caveat that only Android to Android messaging is secured.
Forbes says that “it remains a stark irony that while Google and Apple separately advise Android and iPhone users to rely on end-to-end encryption, when it comes to RCS it’s still missing, with no timeline in sight for a fix.”
