“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,” Zappala said.īecause most people don’t experience significant security problems, both professors agreed, it’s hard to make a case for them investing the time and effort to understand and use security features that applications offer. With that prompting, 79 percent of users were able to successfully authenticate the other party.ĭespite the drastic climb, however, researchers discovered another significant hurdle: participants averaged 11 minutes to authenticate their partners. In the second phase, participants were again asked to share a credit card number, but in this round researchers emphasized the importance of authentication ceremonies. Others opted for ad-hoc security measures like asking their partners for details about a shared experience. However, only 14 percent of users in this phase managed to successfully authenticate their recipient. Participants were warned about potential threats and encouraged to make sure their messages were confidential. In the first phase of a two-phase experiment, the research team prompted study participants to share a credit card number with another participant. The authentication ceremony allows users to confirm the identify of their intended conversation partner, and makes sure no other person – even the company providing the messaging application – can intercept messages. But because most users are unaware of the ceremony and its importance, “it is possible that a malicious third party or man-in-the middle attacker can eavesdrop on their conversations,” said Vaziripour, who was joined on the study by computer science professors Daniel Zappala and Kent Seamons and five other student researchers. Short answer: they’re generally not.Įven though What’sApp and Viber encrypt messages by default, all three messaging apps also require what’s called an authentication ceremony to ensure true security. ![]() student Elham Vaziripour, who led the recent study. ![]() “We wanted to understand how typical users are protecting their privacy,” said BYU computer science Ph.D. Researchers at Brigham Young University have learned that most users of popular messaging apps Facebook Messenger, What’sApp, and Viber are leaving themselves exposed to fraud or other hacking because they don’t know about or aren’t using important security options.
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