![]() ![]() ![]() 'Once we told people about the authentication ceremonies, most people could do it, but it was not simple, people were frustrated and it took them too long,' Daniel Zappala, a computer science professor who worked on the study, said. While explicit instructions regarding the authentication ceremony caused a drastic increase in the number of users completing it, researchers discovered it took those participants an average of 11 minutes to do so. But they say that because there's always a risk, it shouldn't be that way and that the process needs to be 'much easier to do' The researchers say it's difficult to make a case for users going through such hurdles to enable proper security because they never experience hacking. With that prompting, an average of 79 percent of users were able to successfully authenticate the other party.įacebook Messenger proved the most difficult with only a 63 percent success rate, while WhatsApp and Viber fared better with 79 and 96 percent success rates respectively. ![]() In the second phase of the study, participants were again asked to share a credit card number, but in this round researchers explained what man-in-the-middle attacks are and emphasized the importance of authentication ceremonies. 'We were hoping that a general awareness that they should be careful would lead them to find and use the ceremony, but this wasn't the case.' #Viber messenger hack how to#'These answers show the participants understood how to verify that they are talking to the right person, but also show a lack of understanding that someone else could be intercepting and monitoring their phone call or text messages,' Zappala told. Others made misguided attempts to verify the recipient was the correct person by assuming it was so because they recognized their picture or by asking for details about a shared experience, not realizing this would not secure the information from hackers. #Viber messenger hack full#Lighter shades indicate the time taken to find the ceremony and the full bar indicates time taken for completing the ceremony Timing for finding and using the authentication ceremony in the second phase. ![]() Only 14 percent of users, however, managed to successfully complete the authentication ceremony. The researchers also warned the participants about potential threats and encouraged them to make sure their messages were confidential. In the first part of the two-phase experiment - which was funded in part by more than $1 million in grants from the National Science Foundation and Department of Homeland Security - the research team prompted study participants to share a credit card number with a friend they brought with them for the experiment. 'Unfortunately, evidence to date suggests users are unable to do this.' #Viber messenger hack manual#'The effective security provided by secure messaging applications depends heavily on users completing an authentication ceremony-a sequence of manual operations enabling users to verify they are indeed communicating with one another,' reads the paper, which was presented at Thirteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security. While explicit instructions regarding the authentication ceremony caused a drastic increase in the number of users completing it, researchers discovered it took those participants an average of 11 minutes to do so, revealing how confusing the process is Without doing so, Daniel Zappala, a computer science professor who worked on the study, told that 'a clever hacker could make you think that you are encrypting your messages to your partner (let's call her Alice), when in reality, you are encrypting your messages for an intruder (let's call her Trudy).' The process allows users to confirm the identify of their intended conversation partner and makes sure no other third party can trick you into revealing the contents of your messages. WhatsApp and Viber, however, both tout their end-to-end encryption is automatic and makes it so even they can't access your messages, which leads many users to believe their conversations are secure.īut that's not the case - to truly encrypt messages, all three apps require what's called an 'authentication ceremony.' 'It is possible that a malicious third party or man-in-the middle attacker can eavesdrop on their conversations,' said Brigham Young University computer science PhD student Elham Vaziripour, who led the recent study.įacebook messenger doesn't offer automatic encryption but allows users to set it up themselves. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |