Instant messaging encryption, can be a serious problem if you have no idea what you are dealing with. It’s worse if you do not have the slightest idea that your messages over IM are being intercepted. Any common man, who has an idea how dangerous it can be if the instant messages are intercepted, will definitely be worried, but what can a commoner do as most of them won’t be very experienced with computers? Well this post is targeted to the mass who have little or no knowledge/experience with computers. In this article, I’ll try to guard you’ll from all those packet sniffers who can be sitting on your system and reading everything you type on your Instant Messengers.
If you think your messages are being intercepted and worried then don’t worry you aren’t paranoid. This can be quite common in your workplaces also, where the employer wishes to keeps track of what’s happening within the organization. And if you are on Wi-Fi signal anywhere in public wireless hotspot or even in your house your Instant Messages can be intercepted.
Firstly, even before fixing this issue, you should never discuss any sensitive material/sensitive information like your bank details or credit card details via IM. You definitely can, provided you have encrypted your IM traffic, if not better consider IM encryption to be your top priority task.
Technology, and it’s rapid growth ensures that you have encryption readily available for almost all, if not most IM platforms, that are available either commercially or freely in the market. If you use Yahoo Instant Messenger or MSN Live Messenger, then Secway is a good option. For those who use AIM, Aim-Encrypt is a good solution.
Though these are free, there is a small catch, the encryption software should be present on both/all the systems that are involved in the IM session. If the encryption software is not installed and activated on both/all the machines involved in the chat, then the encrypt channel won’t be activated.
These software gives you the encryption necessary, but you should know that these software won’t give you any kind of protection against the spyware or malware applications like “keylogger” if any are present directly on your computer. The above mentioned software gives you protection against the data that are transfered through channels and not that is typed itself.
So you should know about spyware and malware before you worry about encryption. I’ll talk about this in detail sometime soon.