Russia’s Federal Security Service has learned to monitor, but not read correspondence in Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal

Thanks to the obtained technologies, the Federal Security Service of Russia learned to monitor correspondence in encrypted messengers Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal. This is reported by Babel with reference to The New York Times.

The FSB can also track phone locations, identify anonymous users, and hack accounts.

Russian technology firms owned by the Citadel Group are involved in tracking people. At one time, this business was partially controlled by the Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov. The list of companies includes: MFI Soft, Vas-Experts and Protey.

These programs do not have access to chats. But one of them can detect when people call and send files. The software also allows you to determine whether a person uses multiple phones, map connections and find out which phones were in certain places on a certain day. Another product may be able to collect passwords entered on unencrypted sites.

The MFI-Soft tracking system allows you to display information about subscribers and their Internet traffic. Protey offers products that, in particular, provide voice-to-text conversion.

A tool called NetBeholder displays the location of the two phones throughout the day. This allows you to determine whether they have crossed paths, indicating a potential human encounter.

The developers of Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp have few protections against such tracking. The point is that encryption can mask certain messages, but it cannot block the data being exchanged. The Signal developers recommended using a feature that sends traffic through another server. This will hide its source and destination.

It was previously reported that a group of previously unknown hackers took responsibility for the cyberattack on the Russian satellite communications provider Dozor-Teleport, whose services are used by energy companies and the country’s defense and security services.