Amazon Owned Secure Messaging App Wickr Me to Shut Down - PCMag

Wickr Me, the escaped encrypted messaging app, is to unopen down connected 31 December 2023 and volition halt accepting caller idiosyncratic registrations connected 31 December 2022, Wickr said successful a blog post(Opens successful a caller window).

The level was acquired(Opens successful a caller window) by Amazon Web Services successful June 2021, and it offers unafraid end-to-end encrypted messaging, including text, photos, videos, and record attachments crossed Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows devices.

The institution added that it would beryllium moving its absorption connected securing “our concern and nationalist assemblage customers’ information and communications” with its non-consumer paid platforms AWS Wickr and Wickr Enterprise instead. 

Wickr’s high-strength encryption, which the institution claims “would instrumentality trillions of years(Opens successful a caller window)” to interruption has made it fashionable with each Department of Defense(Opens successful a caller window) agencies, arsenic good arsenic journalists and whistleblowers. Before it was bought by Amazon past year, the steadfast benefited from a $1.6 cardinal investment(Opens successful a caller window) from Q-Tel, a CIA backing arm, and according to VICE had signed a $900,000 declaration with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

But the app has travel nether scrutiny for reportedly not doing capable to ace down connected the speech of kid enactment maltreatment images: successful June NBC News reported(Opens successful a caller window) that Wickr Me had go a “go-to destination” for specified content. Wickr has besides been utilized arsenic a instrumentality by acheronian nett cause dealers(Opens successful a caller window).

In its shutdown announcement post, the institution said it was moving connected enabling concern and nationalist assemblage customers to pass with idiosyncratic users extracurricular their web connected AWS Wickr. Wickr added that it would supply much accusation successful the coming months connected actions existent Wickr Me customers tin instrumentality to sphere their data. 

WhatsApp remains the biggest escaped unafraid messaging app connected the planet, but Signal and Telegram are different fashionable alternatives. Last month, Signal announced it would drop support(Opens successful a caller window) for unencrypted SMS successful its Android app, and said it was investigating an Instagram-esque stories feature.