{"id":42215,"date":"2021-06-28T08:50:25","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T08:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/?guid=999b00c6186178f628c2becb0c925635"},"modified":"2021-06-28T08:50:25","modified_gmt":"2021-06-28T08:50:25","slug":"aws-buys-encrypted-messaging-app-wickr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/aws-buys-encrypted-messaging-app-wickr\/","title":{"rendered":"AWS buys encrypted messaging app Wickr"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n Mike Brassfield<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
28 Jun, 2021<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\n


Amazon Web Services (AWS)<\/a>\u00a0is making a big splash in the encrypted messaging market with the acquisition of\u00a0Wickr, a secure messaging app that\u2019s geared toward government and military use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wickr uses\u00a0end-to-end encryption<\/a>, which means\u00a0only people on either end of a conversation can decrypt each other’s messages. The app also allows users to set their messages to self-destruct after a chosen period for additional security.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAWS is offering Wickr services effective immediately, and Wickr customers, channel, and business partners can continue to use Wickr\u2019s services as they do today,\u201d AWS VP Stephen Schmidt\u00a0announced<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The timing of the deal is interesting too. Amazon just bought a secure messaging app that serves government and military organizations while\u00a0it\u2019s embroiled in a legal dispute<\/a>\u00a0over the Pentagon\u2019s $10 billion JEDI\u00a0cloud<\/a>\u00a0computing contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe need for this type of secure communications is accelerating,\u201d\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0Schmidt, the company\u2019s VP. \u201cWith the move to hybrid work environments, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, enterprises and government agencies have a growing desire to protect their communications across many remote locations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, public sector customers use Wickr for a diverse range of missions, from securely communicating with office-based employees to providing service members at the tactical edge with encrypted communications.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wickr has a dark side, as\u00a0it\u2019s been tied to the drug trade<\/a>\u00a0and other illicit industries in the past. Plus, the political climate has pressured tech firms, including Wickr, to break their end-to-end encryption to preserve national security.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen if Amazon has any plans to change Wickr in any way. In its initial press release, AWS seems content leaving the messaging app as is, especially amid the wave of remote and hybrid working arrangements.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Brassfield<\/p>\n

28 Jun, 2021 <\/p>\n

Amazon Web Services (AWS)\u00a0is making a big splash in the encrypted messaging market with the acquisition of\u00a0Wickr, a secure messaging app that\u2019s geared toward government and military use.\u00a0
\nWic…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":655,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/655"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42216,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42215\/revisions\/42216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}