Everyone loves a good controversy. After all, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right? Now it looks like Signal is reaping the benefits from it. The encrypted messaging app Signal just got a lot more attention, especially in the US and Yemen, following a massive security blunder, leading to Signal downloads in the US jumping by 45% in a single day.
The government blunder
The boost came after news broke that Trump officials had been discussing military plans for a Houthi strike inside a private Signal chat. We know that Trump and his allies favor Signal. This is because of the app’s strong encryption protocols that keep conversations private.
However, privacy is only good if you keep the doors shut. If you leave the door to your home wide open and people peep in, can you really get too upset?
This is what happened when Trump officials accidentally added Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the thread. He later published everything that he read.
We should make this clear: Signal itself didn’t fail. Its encryptions are still in place, and all your conversations are still private. However, this is a simple—but catastrophic—case of human error. The kind of government officials discussing top-secret military plans should be well aware of.
Signal’s enjoying the attention
However, this blunder and seeing Signal’s name hit the headlines gave the app massive publicity. According to Appfigures, Signal downloads spiked by 28% globally on iOS and Android. In the US, that number hit 45%. Over in Yemen, it saw a 42% increase as well. In fact, Signal jumped from 50th position to the 9th position among social media apps in Yemen within hours of the article going live.
That being said, Signal wasn’t built to handle national secrets. At the end of the day, it’s a consumer chat app that happens to have strong security and privacy features attached to it. However, it’s not hard to see why governments are adopting it. It’s readily available and it’s free. In fact, the US isn’t alone in using Signal.
The European Commission had previously recommended its employees to use the app. However, Signal isn’t without its controversies. The app has been linked to criminals. Thanks to its secure and private nature, extremist groups and criminals conducting illegal activities have relied on it to keep their illicit conversations and operations quiet and away from prying eyes.
