These are the five reasons to stop using SMS now!

Short Message Service (SMS) has been a staple of communication on mobile devices since the 1990s, when it commercially arrived on mobile networks around the world. However, over time messaging services based on the Internet Protocol have become more popular, but SMS continues to be widely used – and this is not necessarily a good thing. So we’re going to tell you the five reasons to stop using SMS now!

These are the five reasons to stop using SMS now!

It’s true that SMS are easy to use. Furthermore, they are present on practically all cell phones and you don’t even need the Internet to use them. This is a compelling argument for SMS to continue to be popular. However, if you want to stay safe and preserve your privacy, you should not use it.

Lack of end-to-end encryption

SMS do not have end-to-end encryption. In fact, the messages SMS are normally sent in plain text. This means that there is no type of protection and that practically anyone with sufficient knowledge can intercept an SMS. If your mobile operator uses some type of encryption, it is most likely that it uses a weak and outdated algorithm, which is only applied during message transit.

SMS relies on outdated technology

SMS technology relies on a set of signaling protocols called Signaling System No. 7 (SS7), developed in the 1970s. It is outdated and highly insecure, which makes it vulnerable to various types of attacks.

Official entities can read your SMS messages

Why haven’t the security flaws in SS7 been fixed yet? One possible explanation is that regulators are not particularly interested in doing so, because governments around the world listen to their citizens. Whether this is the real reason or not, it is indisputable that your government could read your SMS messages if it wanted to. In the United States, law enforcement authorities do not even need a warrant to access messages older than 180 days.

Your operator stores your messages

SMS messages remain with operators for a certain period of time (the duration depends on the operator). Metadata, which concerns information about the data itself, remains for even longer. If you’re not worried about law enforcement authorities reading your messages, you might want to know that your mobile operator can also access them. While it is true that laws, regulations and internal policies prevent mobile service providers from spying on users, unauthorized access and breaches continue to occur.

Unable to cancel sending an SMS message

It is not possible to cancel sending an SMS message. Once the recipient receives it, it remains on their phone indefinitely, unless they manually delete it. Sending a regrettable and embarrassing SMS is one thing, but what if the recipient’s cell phone has been compromised in some way? What if you revealed some personal information in an SMS that you shouldn’t have revealed? This is probably a scenario you would rather not contemplate.