The messaging app also is believed to be populated by drug peddlers who abuse the app's strong encryption feature to stay under the radar of law enforcement agencies.īoth Amazon and Wickr did not immediately respond to Information Security Media Group's requests for comments. In November 2021, the FBI charged a Tennessee resident after being granted permission by a federal court to use his facial ID to unlock encrypted messages in a Wickr group used for sharing child pornographic content. and Australia to share illegal content, and the company was criticized for flagging only 15 such incidents out of 3,500 cases. court documents showed Wickr was being used by child abusers in the U.S, U.K. The decision will not be impacting the app's encryption services for enterprises AWS Wickr and Wickr Enterprise," Wickr said on Friday.Īmazon will update Wickr Me users in the coming months and securely save the user data that it has collected so far, the company added.Īmazon did not say why it is closing Wickr Me, but in recent months, the company has come under intense scrutiny from law enforcement agencies for failing to do enough to curb the dissemination of child sexual abuse content using Wickr Me. "After careful consideration, we will not accept user registrations for Wickr Me after December 31, 2022, and will discontinue Wickr Me on December 31, 2023. Add users outside of your network (Wickr Me users) and easily spin up urgent business critical conversations Integrate the tools and services already in your workflow, provided by WickrIO, the gateway to build your own bots and integrations with e.g. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, which use the service to encrypt video, chat, text and voice services. While Wickr Me is open to the general public, Wickr Enterprise and AWS Wickr support encryption requirements for military and law enforcement agencies. Amazon acquired Wickr in June 2021 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic to secure communication channels for Amazon's enterprise and government partners. San Francisco-based Wickr, founded in 2012, uses AES-256 end-to-end encryption to allow users to securely and privately communicate. See Also: Live Webinar | Breaking Down Security Challenges so Your Day Doesn’t Start at 3pm The public version of the app has come under law enforcement scrutiny for allegations that the strong encryption shields drug peddlers and child abusers from prosecution. You launch Wickr Me from the application launcher (under Internet or by. Wickr’s, whose backers have included the CIA and controversial private security firm Blackwater, had also become a hub for drug dealers forced off the dark web by the closures of notorious illegal goods marketplaces such as Silk Road, according to reports.A year after buying Wickr's encrypted instant-messaging app, Amazon will shut down Wickr Me on Dec. Wickr Me can be installed in Debian and provides various functionality in. In June, NBC News, citing court documents, law enforcement and activists, said Amazon had done “little” to proactively address the problem. The shutdown announcement follows reports that the company’s free messaging app had allowed criminals to exchange images of child sexual abuse. “After careful consideration, we will be concentrating Wickr’s focus on securing our business and public sector customers’ data and communications with AWS Wickr and Wickr Enterprise, and have decided to discontinue our consumer product, Wickr Me,” Amazon said, adding that the company was working on allowing Wickr customers to securely communicate with individuals outside of their organization. Wickr’s other products, which are geared toward government agencies, military organizations and enterprises, won’t be impacted. ![]() The shutdown will only affect the consumer-facing version of Wickr, which has become popular among journalists and whistleblowers looking to send end-to-end encrypted and self-destructing messages. Amazon says the app will stop accepting new user registrations on Decembefore it’s discontinued completely the following year. In a post published Friday, Amazon said that Wickr Me will shut down for good on December 31, 2023. Wickr was founded in 2011 and became one of the first mainstream end-to-end encrypted messaging apps, until it was acquired by Amazon’s cloud services giant Amazon Web Services in 2021. Secure communications provider Wickr has announced that it will shutter its free encrypted messaging app, Wickr Me, next year.
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