The expert told how to protect correspondence in messengers from strangers

MOSCOW, 16 Oct – PRIME. Secret chats in messengers are closed and cannot be read by anyone uninvited. However, you should not relax: in order to guarantee security in messengers, you need to follow some rules, Alexander Novikov, head of the research, cyberanalytics and development service of T1 Group, told the Prime agency.

For example, in the Telegram messenger, you can set up two-factor authentication, and then when you try to log into your account on a new device, you will additionally need to enter a password. “At the same time, if two-factor authentication was enabled for the account, and the device on which the account is available was lost and the owner forgot the password, it will not be possible to restore access to the account,” the expert points out.

When you try to log in to your account on another device, this messenger sends a code to the application with instructions on how to proceed. If two-factor authentication was already enabled for the account, and the attacker failed to guess the password, Telegram will send a notification to the application.

“In the event that they want to export the chat from the device from which they just logged into the account, Telegram will send a notification requesting permission to export the chat,” the specialist assured.

You can check the devices on which you have access to your account in the app itself under Settings > Devices (or Privacy > Active Sessions). Here you can also end sessions on other devices.

Another way to secure correspondence in Telegram from third parties is a secret chat – it is available only on the device on which it was created. For a secret chat, you can set the time of availability of messages, you can not take screenshots of correspondence and forward messages.

Additionally, you can set a password to enter the application – in this case, access to the device does not imply direct access to the account.

“SIM card cloning opens access to the phone number to which the Telegram account is linked, which means that it is possible to receive a confirmation code. But in this case, security is provided by telecom operators – SMS is not received on the number for which the SIM card was replaced within 24 hours,” he explains.