Voice communication is scrambled, and call establishment is encrypted. 'Text messaging has always been encrypted and media files are encrypted on Android and will be encrypted on other platforms as well. Today, though, Viber said the customer service rep wasn't totally right. We are currently developing an end-to-end secure call feature that will encrypt all calls.' The connection that is made when a caller places a call is encrypted, but the call itself (that is, the audio data) is not encrypted. Phone numbers and contact information is not encrypted. In that response, Viber also told Hawke, 'Currently the only data that is encrypted are text messages. Viber said last week: 'We aren't aware of a single user who has been affected by this.' Still, the company did respond to Hawke's email. 'The Viber application wasn't even able to notice that it had been intercepted by the hotspot, and if it was using encryption that shouldn't have been possible,' said Hawke, who reported the problem to Viber on April 7. The SecureMe software that Telecom New Zealand uses to oversee its store Wi-Fi networks stripped out images and replaced them with a 'protected by SecureMe' graphic.

The problem isn't academic, either: New Zealand resident Dan Hawke and his friends actually saw it in action when sending images with Viber.

Somebody with control over the network Viber is using can see and even modify them. On Wednesday, the company said the fix has been submitted to Apple.īecause images and videos are unencrypted by the earlier version of Viber, a user's private messages aren't actually private. The iOS version of Viber remains unchanged since its April 23 release, but Viber last week said it's preparing a fix. The new Android version 4.3.1.21, released Tuesday, includes 'enhancements to the way Viber handles photo, video and location messages,' according to the Viber page on the Google Play app store. Viber has added encryption measures to its messaging app for Android and iOS so that network eavesdroppers no longer can see or tamper with unprotected images, video, and messages about a user's location. At right is the view of the correct graphic that another friend on a different network saw in Viber. Dan Hawke and his friends saw how Telecom New Zealand network protection software replaced an image (center) with a security-block graphic in the messaging app (left).

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