Reuters is reporting that the US House of Representatives has banned WhatsApp on all employee devices:
The notice said the “Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.”
TechCrunch has more commentary, but no more information.
Clive Robinson • June 26, 2025 8:11 AM
@ ALL,
Hmm,
“Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.”
Now let me think a moment… Who owns WhatsApp service, and what are they notorious for doing with regards user privacy?
Which begs the obvious question about US National Security,
“Why has the US Office of Cybersecurity taken so long to ban WhatsApp?”
Oh and,
“When are they going to do the same with LinkedIn, Chrome, MS XaaS, and xxx social media?”
All of which arguably are just as bad.
Wes Reynolds • June 26, 2025 8:42 AM
Post says White House. Linked articles say House of Representatives.
Nick Terrible • June 26, 2025 8:48 AM
House of Rep, Not White House.
Mexaly • June 26, 2025 10:10 AM
They don’t mention how insecure the official White House system is.
Not to worry. Everybody knows.
Ian Stewart • June 26, 2025 10:13 AM
And to think the British Cabinet under Prime Minister Johnson used WhatsApp for cabinet matters. There would have been a lot of organisations interested because it was the time of leaving the European Union and the various PPE contract allocations. It would not surprise me if the current Cabinet was not the same, they seem to be technologically illiterate.
Clive Robinson • June 26, 2025 11:22 AM
@ Wes Reynolds, Nick Terrible, ALL,
With regards,
“House of Representatives, Not White House”
As an outsider looking in I find “official White House” documents can confuse things.
For example,
https://www.whitehouse.gov/oncd/
Further the current Executive appears to “Decide by EO” things that traditionally do not fall within Executive purview, hence the number of adverse court cases reported about “Unlawful Power Grabs”…
Thus the real “Bum on the throne” that actually pushes out “the bumf” at high velocity is far from clear.
Also there is the preceding “autopen signature” story trying to become a scandal to muddy water further.
Clive Robinson • June 26, 2025 11:32 AM
@ ALL,
I forgot to tag onto my above a little output from “Duck Duck”
“The White House has banned WhatsApp on all employee devices due to concerns over data privacy and security risks, citing a lack of transparency in how the app protects user data. This decision aligns with similar actions taken by the U.S. House of Representatives regarding the app’s use on government devices.
thehackernews.com CNBC
Auto-generated based on listed sources. May contain inaccuracies.”
Now is this an example of AI “Soft Bullshit” / “Hallucination”?..
Aaron • June 26, 2025 11:58 AM
Oh this is rich coming from the same monkeys who regularly attempt to create legislation to weaken encryption, in the public sector, can’t even utilize proper encryption applications themselves….
IQ tests should be a requirement for political office:
“This test will attempt to prove you are marginally more intelligent then half of the monkeys in this barrel.”
@Mexaly
Don’t worry, the members of the cabinet famously use Signal, which should be pretty secure.
LOL.
@Me, they reportedly use a weird fork of Signal by the Israeli company TeleMessage, reportedly due to Federal record keeping requirements. It seems like the end-to-end encryption and other protections against metadata were modified if not removed.
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Vesselin Bontchev • June 26, 2025 8:10 AM
Even funnier, they suggest Microsoft Teams as a replacement – a messenger which, depending on the kind of account you have and the kind of communication, has no E2E encryption…