In the wake of a “broad and significant cyber espionage campaign” linked to the People’s Republic of China, iPhone users might want to be careful about responding to text messages that pop up in green.
There are a few reasons why text bubbles show up in green instead of the typical blue. Any text that is from an Android instead of an iPhone, for example, will show up in green.
According to Business Insider, this color differentiation has resulted in friction between Apple and Android smartphone manufacturers in the past. In August 2022, Google even launched the #GetTheMessage campaign about this issue.
However, Apple has maintained that the green message system is important since it signals messages that are not encrypted. When people with iPhones send messages, they are end-to-end encrypted, which means that data in the messages is protected from being stolen. Messages sent between Android and iPhone users don’t have this protection.
“Encryption is your friend, whether it is on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communications, even if the adversary is able to intercept the data, if it is encrypted, it will make it impossible, if not really hard, for them to detect it. So, our advice is to try to avoid using plain text,” said Jeff Greene – Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency executive assistant director for cybersecurity – during a press briefing held Tuesday, according to USA Today.
As CISA, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency, continue to address the cyber espionage campaign, the agencies this week released a guide for protecting communications infrastructure. The Enhanced Visibility and Hardening Guidance for Communications Infrastructure guide “provides best practices to protect against a People’s Republic of China (PRC)-affiliated threat actor that has compromised networks of major global telecommunications providers,” said a press release.
USA Today said this week that the hackers are apparently still at work, with cybersecurity officials revealing that they have not been able to evict them from the networks of some telecom and internet firms. Greene also warned that the hackers may come back if they are eventually evicted.
Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel of the Federal Communications Commission announced this Thursday that the “commission will act to ensure telecommunication companies are required to secure their networks,” in response to the attacks. In another Thursday communication from the FCC, Salt Typhoon was identified as the threat actor behind the attacks.
“The complex cyberattack, carried out by a group of Chinese hackers dubbed Salt Typhoon, began as far back as 2022. Its purpose, according to U.S. officials, was to give Chinese operatives persistent access to telecommunications networks across the U.S. by compromising devices like routers and switches run by companies like AT&T, Verizon, Lumen and others,” said an article from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
While avoiding green text messages is one thing people can do to protect themselves from cybersecurity threats, that doesn’t mean that iPhone users need to stop communicating with their Android-using friends. Instead, they can check out messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Signal that offer encrypted messaging between phones of all types.