No, Signal has not been hacked. However, we do recommend turning off showing Signal content in notifications because the content is stored in memory on device. Apparently, this memory can be retrieved if an attacker has physical access to an unlocked device and has the right tool.
https://activistchecklist.org/signal/#signal-disable-notifications
@jesterchen Yeah, that’s a great point. However, here’s an article in the news today that folks are talking about. Someone deleted the signal app but the notifications were still retrievable.
@HasSignalBeenHacked thanks for your reply. As I said: usually I read articles first,...
The new link is behind a paywall, but what I can see leads to new questions: Do people really believe, data is lost as soon as I delete something? And this is not even asking about other places where data might be stored. If I delete files, usually they're not physically deleted, only the allocation get's destroyed... and yeah, what typical user does know something like that, I know... (and that is long before clear vs. purge vs. cryptographically destroy like in NIST SP 800-88r2 or such).
And as long as the device is unlocked, the encryption won't help.......
And I know how difficult it is to explain the "basics" of this. So thanks again for the clarification.
@jesterchen @HasSignalBeenHacked this is about the news that agencies were able to access the notification database for the device using digital forensic techniques, i.e. special tools that can access the iOS filesystem -- push notifications turn out to be held unencrypted in a database on the iOS filesystem, and are thus pretty easy for enforcement to get at.
But it doesn't mean that they are able to access the Signal application itself, if the device was off
Putting on my user hat...
"OK. Signal has forward secrecy. So messages are gone after I receive them. Great!"
Oh, you didn't turn on disappearing messages? Oh, right, then forensic tools like Cellebrite can get them. You have to turn on disappearing messages. The default is off.
Oh, you did turn on disappearing messages? We send the messages in notifications. So the OS can keep them. Turns out Apple was doing that. There is an option you can turn on to prevent that. It is off by default.
"I'll just delete the entire app!" No, sorry, the OS still has your messages...
At what point does the usability get so bad that we can blame the messaging system?
This same app had a usability issue that turned into a security issue just last year:
End to End Encrypted Messaging in the News: An Editorial Usability Case Study (my article)
https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=em:sg
Has Signal Been Hacked?
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