For a long time, WhatsApp has been working on encrypted cloud backups. WABetaInfo originally disclosed this a few months ago, revealing that WhatsApp is testing encrypted cloud backups and that they should be available shortly.
The objective was to provide your cloud-backed mails an extra degree of privacy and security.
Two months later, Facebook has verified the functionality and stated that it would be arriving to WhatsApp shortly. WhatsApp will be the first messaging network to offer encrypted backups at this size, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Getting there was a difficult technological challenge that necessitated the creation of an entirely new architecture for key storage and cloud storage that worked across operating systems.
We’ll have two options for encrypting our cloud backups once the service is available: a randomly generated 64-digit key or a password saved to a Backup Key Vault. The Backup Key Vault will save passwords in a Hardware Security Module (HSM) and enforce password verification attempts.
There is, however, a significant caveat. If you make several unsuccessful attempts to access your backups, the HSM will permanently block them, so remembering your passwords is critical.
According to Facebook,
The HSM-based Backup Key Vault service will be geographically dispersed over many data centres to ensure that it remains operational in the event of a data centre failure, which is critical for a global business with billions of users.
More information on WhatsApp’s encrypted backups may be found on Facebook’s engineering blog.