Government agencies are being urged to use encrypted messages after the Chinese Salt Typhoon hack

The senators previously revealed classified details of a U.S. Navy experiment testing the end-to-end encryption communications platform Matrix, a decentralized open-source service widely used by NATO countries. The US Navy is testing Matrix for sending encrypted messages from 23 ships and three shore locations.

“While we commend the Department of Defense for piloting such secure, interoperable communications technology, its use remains the exception; unsafe instruments of decency within the Department of Defense and the federal government generally,” the senators said.

“The widespread adoption of insecure, proprietary tools is the direct result of Department of Defense leadership’s failure to require the use of standard end-to-end encryption, a cybersecurity best practice “To prioritize communications security when evaluating various communications platforms.” .”

The Salt Typhoon attack, first reported by the Wall Street JournalAccording to press reports, it has targeted people such as President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“This successful espionage campaign should finally serve as a wake-up call for government communications security, despite repeated warnings from experts and Congress,” the senators wrote.

The FBI and CISA have recommended that people use encrypted messaging and voice services such as Signal and WhatsApp to reduce the risk of hackers intercepting text messages.

Jeff Greene, deputy director of cybersecurity at CISA, told NBC this week: “Encryption is your friend, whether it’s text messages or whether you have the ability to use encrypted voice communications.” Even if the adversary is in “If we were able to intercept the data, encryption would be impossible if it were encrypted.”

According to an October 2024 blog by cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier, Chinese hackers appear to have accessed backdoors used by the U.S. government to carry out wiretapping requests required by the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.

“For years, the security community has resisted these backdoors, pointing out that technology cannot distinguish between good guys and bad guys,” he said. “And here is another example of a backdoor access mechanism being attacked by the ‘false’ eavesdroppers.”

Matthew Hodgson, co-founder of Matrix.org, a nonprofit foundation that develops standards for end-to-end encryption, told Computer Weekly that the Salt Typhoon hack was an “unfortunate confirmation” of concerns about the impact of Britain’s online service is a security law that contains measures that could weaken end-to-end encrypted communication services.

“It’s morbidly amusing to see all the intelligence agencies telling everyone that end-to-end encryption is actually a good idea and backdoors are a bad idea, and that everyone should rely on encrypted systems like Matrix or Signal rather than on “The telephone network no longer trusts,” he said.