How secure is Signal app, anyway?

App is at centre of US intelligence breach

- KATE CONGER

The app, which was started in 2014 and has hundreds of millions of users, is popular among journalists, activists, privacy experts and politicians - anyone who wants to secure their communications with encryption.

But the app's use by government officials resulted in an intelligence breach that took place outside the secure government channels that would normally be used for classified and highly sensitive war planning. The incident has raised questions about Signal's security and why government officials were using it. (Federal officials are generally not allowed to install Signal on their government-issued devices.)

Here's what to know.

WHAT IS SIGNAL?

Signal is an encrypted messaging application that is used to communicate securely. It encrypts messages from end-to-end, meaning that what a user says is encrypted on their device and isn't decrypted until it reaches the recipient. This method protects the message from being intercepted and read by anyone, including internet service providers, hackers or Signal itself, while it is in transit.

Users can also set Signal messages to disappear after a certain length of time.

Users who want their messages to disappear can turn on the feature in the settings for each of their individual chats.

WHO OWNS THE APP?