+44 (0)203 88 020 88

Menu

Search

Cyber Security News & Articles

 

Cyber Security
News & Articles

Trusted Cyber Security Experts
25+ Years Industry Experience
Ethical, Professional & Pragmatic

Telegram vulnerabilities discovered

Security researchers at the University of London discovered several vulnerabilities in the home grown cryptography used by the Telegram messaging app which boasts half a billion users.

The four vulnerabilities discovered in Telegrams bespoke MTProto protocol highlight the dangers of trying to invent new cryptographic systems rather than using proven existing solutions.  MTProto is used by Telegram as a replacement to the industry standard TLS protocol.

Four vulnerabilities were discovered during the research and have now been addressed by Telegram in app updates (7.8.1 for Android, 7.8.3 for iOS and 2.8.8 for Telegram Desktop). They included:

1, An attacker could re-order messages coming from a client to the server without detection.

This allows, for example, to alter the order of “pizza” and “crime” in the sequence of messages: “I say yes to”, “all the pizzas”, “I say no to”, “all the crimes”. This attack is trivial to carry out.
~ Martin R. Albrecht (Information Security Group, Royal Holloway, University of London)

2, An attacker could detect whether a message acknowledgement was sent and received

3, It is theoretically possible (but not really practically possible) for an attacker to recover some of the plaintext from an encrypted message due to the complex nature of the way the protocol is implemented and the order which certain steps must be completed. Proving once more that complexity is the enemy of security.

4, It is theoretically possible to mount a man-in-the-middle attack on the initial key negotiation between the client and server and then impersonate the server to the messaging client breaking the confidentiality and integrity of the communications.

The write up of the attacks performed by the researchers serves to highlight that even if a cryptographic function is secure, it can still be implemented in such a way as to leak information.  Which just adds to the risk when creating home grown crypto as you will necessarily be doing things for the first time and making mistakes along the way – the best practice has not yet been invented for your new system.   Home grown crypto systems are a red flag to wise Security Managers and should be approached with caution and avoided in most business situation.

A more technical academic paper which details the research is available here:  Four Attacks and a Proof for Telegram. To appear at IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2022.

Telegram has addressed all the issues identified during the research in the latest versions of their apps, and has posted an explanation and rebuttal of the findings they did not agree with.

Remi Vaughn from Telegram said:

The traits of MTProto pointed out by the group of researchers from the University of London and ETH Zurich were not critical, as they didn’t allow anyone to decipher Telegram messages. That said, we welcome any research that helps make our protocol even more
secure.

These particular findings helped further improve the theoretical security of the protocol: the latest versions of official Telegram apps already contain the changes that make the four observations made by the researchers no longer relevant.

 

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter today

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with the latest cyber security news and articles from our technical team, you can sign up to our monthly newsletter. 

We hate spam as much as you do, so we promise not to bombard you with emails. We’ll send you a single, curated email each month that contains all of our cyber security news and articles for that month.

Why Choose SecureTeam?

Customer Testimonials

“We were very impressed with the service, I will say, the vulnerability found was one our previous organisation had not picked up, which does make you wonder if anything else was missed.”

Aim Ltd Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

"Within a very tight timescale, SecureTeam managed to deliver a highly professional service efficiently. The team helped the process with regular updates and escalation where necessary. Would highly recommend"

IoT Solutions Group Limited Chief Technology Officer (CTO) & Founder

“First class service as ever. We learn something new each year! Thank you to all your team.”

Royal Haskoning DHV Service Delivery Manager

“We’ve worked with SecureTeam for a few years to conduct our testing. The team make it easy to deal with them; they are attentive and explain detailed reports in a jargon-free way that allows the less technical people to understand. I wouldn’t work with anyone else for our cyber security.”

Capital Asset Management Head of Operations

“SecureTeam provided Derbyshire's Education Data Hub with an approachable and professional service to ensure our schools were able to successfully certify for Cyber Essentials. The team provided a smooth end-to-end service and were always on hand to offer advice when necessary.”

Derbyshire County Council Team Manager Education Data Hub

“A very efficient, professional, and friendly delivery of our testing and the results. You delivered exactly what we asked for in the timeframe we needed it, while maintaining quality and integrity. A great job, done well.”

AMX Solutions IT Project Officer

“We were very pleased with the work and report provided. It was easy to translate the provided details into some actionable tasks on our end so that was great. We always appreciate the ongoing support.”

Innovez Ltd Support Officer

Get in touch today

If you’d like to see how SecureTeam can take your cybersecurity posture to the next level, we’d love to hear from you, learn about your requirements and then send you a free quotation for our services.

Our customers love our fast-turnaround, “no-nonsense” quotations – not to mention that we hate high-pressure sales tactics as much as you do.

We know that every organisation is unique, so our detailed scoping process ensures that we provide you with an accurate quotation for our services, which we trust you’ll find highly competitive.

Get in touch with us today and a member of our team will be in touch to provide you with a quotation. 

0

No products in the basket.

No products in the basket.