Technology

How to know that our phone has been hacked

Published

1 year ago

23/11/2022

pouyan

How to know if the phone is hacked or not? Methods of checking phone hacking. How do we know that our phone is hacked? Is there a way to discover and prevent your smartphone from being hacked? In this article, we teach how to find out if our Android smartphone or iOS iPhone has been hacked, and then we will discuss the methods to fix phone hacking.

These devices are the main centre of our online life, from email to mobile banking systems or smartphone banking operations. Unsurprisingly, smartphones compete with computers as common targets for online hackers. And despite the efforts of Google and Apple, mobile malware continues to make its way into official app stores — and these malicious apps are getting better and brighter every day. According to McAfee’s 2020 Mobile Threat Report, more than half of mobile malware “without hiding the homepage” hijacks the device to serve unwanted ads, send fake reviews, steal marketable information or keep it “hidden” on the victim’s machine. They catch themselves

And while iPhones can be hacked, more malware targets Android devices. In its 2020 Malware Report, Mellorbytes reported an increase in invasive malware and pre-installed malware on Android devices that have been used to steal information – or get victims’ attention. Now the question is, how do we know that the phone has been hacked and who hacked it?
How to know if our phone is hacked? Malware detection system

Malware can also include spyware that monitors the device’s content, programs that use the device’s Internet bandwidth in botnets to send spam, or phishing pages that steals the user’s login by entering a legitimate program or electronic payment systems.

This program is often downloaded from unofficial sources, including phishing links sent via email or message and malicious websites. (While security experts recommend constantly downloading apps from official app stores – such as the Apple App Store or Google Play) – some countries cannot access certain apps from these sources (For example, secure messaging apps that allow you to communicate secretly.)

Then there are commercial spy apps that require physical access to be downloaded to the phone – often by a celebrity such as a partner or a parent – and can monitor everything that happens on the device.

In the following, we introduce twelve ways to determine whether your phone has been hacked.
How to detect phone hacking? Has our phone been hacked?

How do we know that our phone has been hacked?

In the following, we will generally introduce and examine the signs of smartphone hacking.

Sudden battery drain

How do we know that the phone is hacked?

How do we know that the phone is hacked? To detect phone hacking While the phone’s battery life will inevitably decrease over time, a smartphone hacked by malware may suddenly experience a severe battery drain, even if you do not have any programs. You don’t have it open or don’t even do anything special with your phone. Because malware – or spyware – may use the phone’s resources to scan the device and transmit information to a hacking server.

That being said, simple day-to-day use can shorten a phone’s life just as much. Be sure to read this article to increase your phone’s battery life.
Slow down the phone

How do we know that the phone is hacked?

To find out if our phone is hacked or not, how can we know that our phone is hacked if the phone’s battery life decreases quickly? Does your phone freeze frequently, or do specific programs crash and do you suspect that your phone has been hacked? This may be due to malware that overloads the phone’s resources or interferes with other applications.

You may also experience the app running continuously despite trying to close apps or the phone itself crashing or restarting frequently.

High data consumption

Phone data usage

Another sign of a hacked smartphone and how to find out if it is hacked is the increase in the phone’s internet data usage, which can be caused by malware or spyware programs that run in the background and leak information to their server. turn
Calls or texts that you have never applied

If your phone calls or text messages to numbers you don’t recognize, be careful – this could indicate that your phone has been hacked. If the phone is hacked in this way, there is a high possibility that other people are using your account and charging your SIM card.
Sudden ads, the main sign of phone hacking

To find out if our phone is hacked, although all ads do not mean that your phone is hacked, advertisements that are constantly opened on the phone show immoral images or texts about your winnings. It could indicate that your phone is infected with adware, malware that forces devices to visit specific pages that earn money through clicks. If you ask us if the phone has been hacked, the answer is yes. Will be.

Even if an ad window does not indicate that your phone has been hacked, clicking on it will hack your phone and possibly download more malware. So, if you have a question in your mind, how to know if the phone is hacked and you suddenly see a lot of ads on your phone, then definitely think about cleaning the phone.
Unusual behaviour on the user account of the phone. How to understand that our phone has been hacked

If a hacker has access to your phone and can hack it, they also have access to your accounts – from social media to email to various lifestyle or productivity apps. Sometimes it changes. For example, a program closes or opens by itself, resetting the password, sending emails, marking unread emails that you don’t remember to read, or registering for new accounts whose confirmation emails are in Your inbox is happening. Be sure your phone is hacked.

If so, you could risk identity hacking, where criminals open new accounts or lines of credit in your name using information taken from your compromised accounts. Installing and activating the best antivirus on your device is better so that your funds are taken care of.
What to do if the phone is hacked?

Phone hack

If your phone has been hacked, after finding out where the phone was hacked from, the best way is to use antivirus and anti-hacking applications.

For Android, you recommend Avast, which scans for malware and includes a call blocker, firewall, VPN, and a feature to ask for a PIN every time certain apps are used — preventing malware from opening sensitive apps like banking. Your online offers.

iPhones may be less vulnerable to hacking, but they are not entirely immune. Look for iOS anti-security apps acting maliciously on your phone and try to remove them.
Who hacked our phone?

Can we find out who hacked the phone and where the phone was hacked from? Currently, there is no specific method to find the traces of the hacker on your phone. However, there are other technical means and motivations for hackers, criminals, and even people we know, such as employers, to attack our phones and invade our privacy. And unless you’re a high-profile target—journalist, politician, political dissident, business executive, criminal—who attracts particular interest, chances are someone close to you is from a government agency that spies.

Phone hacking methods and phone hacking detection

Spy applications

To find out if our phone is hacked, phone monitoring apps covertly track a person’s location and reject their communications. Many of them are advertised to suspicious partners or untrustworthy employers, but they are still mainly marketed as legitimate tools for parents who need increased security for their children’s information. Such programs can be used to remotely view text messages, emails, internet history and photos. You only need to enter phone calls and GPS positions. Some may even hijack the phone’s microphone and record personal conversations. These apps have everything a hacker wants to do with your phone.

When we studied cell phone spy apps in 2013, we found that they could do everything they promised. Worse, they were easy for anyone to install, and the person being spied on would be none the wiser that their every move was tracked there.

Chester Wisniewski says, “There aren’t many indicators of hidden spyware—you might see more internet on your bill, or your battery life might be shorter than usual because it’s reporting to a third party. give”

Spy apps are available on Google Play and unofficial stores for iOS and Android apps, and it’s straightforward to download one to get access to your phone (and motivation).
How to protect your phone from hacking

Since installing spyware requires physical access to your device, putting a passcode on your phone dramatically reduces the likelihood of someone gaining access to your phone. And since spyware is often installed by someone close to you (a colleague or someone else), choose a code that someone else can’t guess.
Browse your list of apps for apps you need to recognize.
Do not jailbreak your iPhone. “If a device is jailbroken, all the apps will be shown,” Wisniewski says. “If it’s spyware, the spyware can hide deep inside the device, and if the security software can find it, It depends on the sophistication of the spyware [as the security software scans for known malware].”

Making sure your phone isn’t jailbroken for iPhones will also prevent spyware from being downloaded onto your phone since such software — which reduces system-level functions — won’t make it to the App Store.
Download a mobile security app. We introduce McAfee or Bitdefender for Android, and for iOS, we will recommend the Lookout application.

Phishing messages

Whether it’s a text purporting to be from a coronavirus contact tracker or a friend urging you to check out this photo of yourself from last night, text messages containing deceptive links aim to steal sensitive information (aka phishing). or known as “smashing”) want to hack your phone, and that’s true if you want to know if your phone has been hacked with phishing messages.

And given that people typically check their email programs throughout the day, phishing emails are just as profitable for attackers.

Periods like tax season increase phishing messages by drawing attention to people’s tax returns, while the coronavirus-related government stimulus payment period has made phishing emails more tax-advantaged.

Android phones may be text-baited with links to download malicious apps (the same scam isn’t typical for iPhones, which usually can only be enabled with a jailbreak and thus can’t download apps from anywhere but the App Store ). If you try downloading an unofficial app and it asks you to install it, Android will warn you – don’t ignore this warning.

Such malware may expose the user’s phone data or contain a phishing overlay designed to steal login information from targeted applications – for example, the user’s bank or email application.
How to prevent phone hacking from receiving phishing messages

Keep in mind how you usually verify your identity with different accounts. For example, your bank will never ask you to enter your full password or PIN.
Check out the IRS Phishing section to learn how the IRS communicates with the public and verify the communications you receive
Avoid clicking on links from numbers you don’t know or in vague and strange messages from friends, especially if you can’t see the full URL.
If you click on the link and try downloading an unofficial app, your Android phone should notify you before installing it. If you ignore the warning or the app otherwise bypasses Android security, uninstall the app or run a mobile security scan to prevent your phone from being hacked.

Unauthorized access to iCloud or Google Account

Hacked iCloud and Google accounts provide access to a staggering amount of data backed up on your smartphone – photos, phonebook, current location, messages, call logs, and in the case of iCloud Keychain, passwords stored on Email accounts, browsers and other applications. And there are spyware vendors who specifically market their products against these vulnerabilities.

Online criminals may not find much value in photos of ordinary people — unlike nude pictures of celebrities, which are quickly leaked — but they know the owners of the images do, Wisniewski says, which can lead to hostages—taking accounts and their contents digitally.

Moreover, a broken Google account means a broken Gmail, the primary email for many users.

Access to a single original email can lead to a domino effect of hacking across all the accounts the email is linked to – from your Facebook account to your mobile carrier account, setting the stage for the depth of identity theft. That will put your credit at risk.

Is our phone hacked with a Google account, and how to prevent it?

Create a strong password for these critical accounts (and, as always, your email).
Enable login notifications to be notified of logins from new computers or locations.
Enable two-factor authentication so that even if someone finds your password, they can’t access your account without access to your phone.
To avoid personal password resets, lie when setting password security questions. You’d be surprised how many security questions rely on information that’s readily available on the internet or widely known by your family and friends.

Hacking the phone with Bluetooth, how to know that our phone has been hacked through Bluetooth

Any wireless connection can be vulnerable to phone hacking — and earlier this year, security researchers found a vulnerability in Android 9 and older devices that allowed hackers to connect via Bluetooth secretly. , then steal the data on the device. (On Android 10 devices, this attack breaks Bluetooth and makes it impossible to secure.)

Although this vulnerability is soon patched in security updates, attackers can hack your Bluetooth connection through other vulnerabilities .they tricking you into pairing with your device by giving it a different name (like “AirPods” or another global name) and once connected. Your personal information will be at risk.
Phone camera hack

As video calling becomes increasingly common for work and family communication, it highlights the importance of securing computer webcams from hackers — but that front-facing phone camera can also be at risk. For example, a fixed bug in Android’s built-in camera app allows attackers to record video from the front camera, steal photos, and geo-locate images, while malicious apps can access it. Your camera app can also pinch and hack your pictures or documents.

image source: MEDIUM

Related Topics:android hack hack iOS hack malware phone hack smartphone

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Technology

Galaxy Fit 3 review

Published

5 hours ago

20/04/2024

pouyan

The Galaxy Fit 3 is a great generational improvement and benefits from many features of the Galaxy Watch, making it an attractive choice for users on a tighter budget.

Galaxy Fit 3 review

It has been four years since Samsung released the third generation Galaxy Fit smart band; In this long absence, many probably forgot that Samsung also has a smart wristband in addition to a smartwatch, and for a while, it was even rumored that the Koreans have abandoned the Galaxy Fit product line forever.

Galaxy Fit 3, which was launched at the end of February 2024, has changed its face so much that it can hardly be considered the sequel of the previous generation; From the 31% increase in screen size, which has changed the previous very elongated form factor to more reasonable dimensions, to the two-piece strap and aluminum material of the body instead of plastic, and the addition of fall detection capabilities and ambient light sensor.

If you have had a Galaxy Fit 2 and want to stay in the Samsung ecosystem at a much higher cost than Chinese smart bands, you will not regret buying the Galaxy Fit 3; But I don’t think many people are going to upgrade now. You probably either want to know which one to choose for your first smartwatch, between the Fit 3 and the Xiaomi Smart Band 8, or you want to know if you can spend more than half the price of the Galaxy Watch 6 and get all the features and functions that make this watch one of the best. Has the market smartwatch become accessible or not?

Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 specifications at a glance
Display	1.6 inch AMOLED with a resolution of 256 x 402 pixels
Weight	36.8 grams (with strap) / 18.5 grams (without strap)
Dimensions	42.9 x 28.8 x 9.9 mm
body	Aluminum (in black, white and rose gold)
operating system	FreeRTOS
Sensors	Optical heart rate sensor with the ability to calculate the blood oxygen level (SpO2), accelerometer, gyroscope, barometer, ambient light sensor
battery	208 mAh / about a week of daily use (declared up to 13 days)
Water resistance	5-atmosphere pressure / IP68 certificate
Speaker and microphone	does not have
connections	Bluetooth version 5.3 / does not have Wi-Fi

Before we go to the features, let me tell you about the feel of the Galaxy Fit 3. Samsung’s new smart band with an aluminum body weighing only 18.5 grams is very light, comfortable, and well-made, and although it has relatively large dimensions, it fits well on narrow wrists.

The Fit 3 silicone strap, which you can get in three colors, black, white, and rose gold, is very soft and high-quality, and it has changed from the previous generation’s integrated mode, where the screen was placed inside, to a more standard two-piece model. Fastening the strap and connecting it to the wristband is done easily; Perhaps the only fault that can be found is that there are not enough holes on the strap to firmly fasten the body on narrow wrists.

Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 in white, rose gold and black models together

Having said that, if you are the type of person who wants to monitor your health status 24 hours a day, even while you sleep, the Galaxy Fit 3 is a more logical choice of watch, because apart from the lower price (albeit at the expense of fewer features), it is smaller and weighs less. Almost half of the Galaxy Watch 6; So it won’t bother you when you sleep.

In addition, Galaxy Fit 3 benefits from the highest certificate of resistance against dust penetration (IP68) and resistance up to 5-atmosphere pressure (50 meters depth) against water penetration so that you can easily use it to record information related to swimming in the pool.

Currently, it is not possible to connect Galaxy Fit 3 to iPhone

Galaxy smartwatches and wristbands are specially optimized for the Samsung ecosystem and then for Android phones, they are usually compatible with the iPhone (with some limitations of course); But currently, it is not possible to connect the Galaxy Fit 3 to the iPhone, because the Galaxy Fit application in the App Store does not support the new generation of Samsung wristbands. So, if you have an iPhone and want to use the sports and health features of other brands for a much lower price than the Apple Watch, you have to leave the Galaxy Fit 3 out of your options for now.

Like the previous two generations, Galaxy Fit 3 uses the open-source operating system FreeRTOS, which can be considered a lighter and simpler version of WearOS. Samsung has preferred using FreeRTOS for its smartwatch because cheaper and less powerful chips can handle it well and do not lag. In addition, the life of the battery increased many times; Fit 3’s battery lasted about a week in my daily use, while continuous monitoring of heart rate, stress, and sleep was active, but Always-on was disabled, and I spent 30 minutes exercising and 15 minutes checking the time and notifications. With a day or two of charging, the Galaxy Watch 6 is fantastic.

Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 in three models: white, rose gold and black

The FreeRTOS user interface is similar to WearOS in many ways, and even the application icons are almost the same; But unlike WearOS, it does not support Google Play and the ability to install external applications, and you have to go with the same default apps; including health application, music control, phone finder, weather, calendar, timer, alarm, stopwatch, world clock, calculator and camera shutter control. Galaxy Fit 3 has almost all smartband applications; However, the possibility of downloading favorite applications may not be pleasant for some users.

FreeRTOS operating system, smooth, simple, and fast but more limited than WearOS

The Samsung Health app for the Galaxy Fit 3 is one of the most complete and useful apps that can be found on the smartwatch. In this application, you can see various information, including the number of steps, how long you have exercised in a week, the amount of calories and water consumed, and the heart rate. By tapping on each, the corresponding app will open with more data. There is also information related to the prediction of menstruation in this section, which, unlike the Huawei Watch GT4, which works based on information such as heart rate, skin temperature, and breathing, only relies on the information entered in the calendar.

Leaving aside the limitation of FreeRTOS in installing applications, during the time I was testing the Galaxy Fit 3, the operating system performed very smoothly and even appeared as good as the Galaxy Watch 6. Fit 3’s user interface is also very simple and straightforward. By pressing the physical home button once, you will return to the main screen. Pressing the button twice will open the list of workouts, where you can choose another application for this command from the Advanced Feature section of the smartband settings.

There is a long delay in sending notification messages to the Galaxy Fit 3

Galaxy Fit 3 uses simple and standard gestures to access different parts of the wristband; Swiping up shows the list of applications, swiping down shows quick settings, swiping left shows the Tile (Tile) or the applications card, and swiping right shows notifications. In the tile environment, you can add up to 12 different cards. The notification text also supports Farsi language and emoji, although it takes about 28 seconds for the message notification to be displayed on the smart band.

Unfortunately, on the Galaxy Fit 3, unlike the Galaxy Watch, there is no possibility to reply to a message, and at best, you can only send predefined replies, which are not very useful. I think it’s time for sending messages from smart watches and wristbands to become a standard, not to remain exclusive to luxury devices.

Galaxy Fit 3 does not lack in the watch face department; From the Wearable application, you can access more than a hundred watch faces with various designs and colors. If none of the watch faces catch your eye, you can use your favorite images and edit them with the application’s tools, and even change the color of the time display for better readability on any background. Samsung also lets you switch between watchfaces you’ve created by saving multiple images in the Watchfaces section and tapping on the Fit 3’s home screen.

Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 watch in the application

Galaxy Fit 3 has almost all the health and sports features of Galaxy Watch 6 (except ECG and irregular heart rate measurement, which is not available in Iran), but in some features, it shows different accuracy; For example, in the heart rate test, the Fit 3 was about 5% different from the Watch 6. While I was sleeping, with both devices strapped to my wrist, the Galaxy Watch 6 reported that the blood oxygen level dropped below 90%, but the Fit 3 reported everything as normal. In the stress test, Watch 6 showed a slightly lower stress level.

Tests	Samsung Galaxy Fit 3	Samsung Galaxy Watch 6
heart beat	77 beats per minute	81 beats per minute
blood oxygen level (SpO2)	98 percent	96 percent
stress test	medium	Average down

In sleep monitoring, Galaxy Fit 3 appeared very accurate and provided complete statistics; including sleep duration, different stages of sleep, sleep score, and even blood oxygen level recording during sleep. If you activate the snore detection option from the application, the phone’s microphone will record your snoring sound.

Galaxy Fit 3 has over a hundred workouts to cover almost any sport you want. For some sports activities, including walking, running, elliptical, and swimming, which have just been added, it has an automatic detection mode so that if you forget to start the workout, the smart band will start the corresponding workout after a few minutes. Fit 3’s pedometer was also about 10 steps different from reality and is generally accurate.

Fit 3 is equipped with two new safety functions, fall detection, and Emergency SOS

The Galaxy Fit 3 uses two new safety features, including Fall Detection and Emergency SOS, which are present in the Apple Watch and Samsung’s WearOS-based devices. If you fall while exercising, the Fit 3 will call the emergency services or a selected person from your contact list thanks to the fall detection feature.

By activating Emergency SOS and selecting a person as an emergency contact, you can send your location to this person by pressing the button 5 times. If you have already entered your medical information, it will be displayed on the screen of the smart band.

Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 fall detection capability

The Galaxy Fit 3 is now equipped with an ambient light sensor to adjust the screen brightness according to the environment. Samsung hasn’t announced the Fit 3’s maximum brightness, but it seems to be around the 600 nits we’d expect from this price range.

Samsung’s new smart band uses two interesting features in the security department that may come in handy; First, you can choose a pin code for it; As long as the smart band is on your wrist, you don’t need to enter a passcode, but as soon as you remove it from your wrist, the device is locked and a PIN code is required to unlock it.

Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 display, white model

The second feature, which is enabled by default, prevents the display of notifications as long as the smartband is not attached to your wrist. For example, if you put the Galaxy Fit 3 on the table and leave it behind the table, another person cannot read the messages; Of course, if you notice that the notifications are not displayed even when you wear the smartband on your wrist, disable this feature from the security section, because there is probably an interference between the skin of your hand and the sensor.

Is the Galaxy Fit 3 worth buying?

So far, we talked about the features and capabilities that seem to put the Galaxy Fit 3 almost at the level of the Galaxy Watch 6; But the Samsung Smartband lacks some of the basic functions of the Galaxy Watch, including built-in GPS, speaker, and microphone for answering calls, sending replies to messages, installing additional applications from Google Play, Wi-Fi connectivity and LTE options, and models with different sizes to better fit the size of the watch. Different wrists. In terms of appearance, the Galaxy Watch has a more luxurious and attractive design and is more similar to a classic watch.

Considering the differences, the Galaxy Fit 3 cannot be considered a replacement for the Galaxy Watch 6. If answering calls and messages, internal GPS, installing applications and the classic appearance of the watch is not your priority, and at the same time you want the device to be attached to your wrist all the time, the battery life is satisfactory, and to spend half the price of the Galaxy Watch, the Galaxy Fit 3 at a price of about 4 4.5 million tomans is a more appropriate choice in the Iranian market; But if you don’t care about staying in the Samsung ecosystem and a bigger screen, and you just want to get a smart band for your Android phone with all the health and sports features, including swimming, the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 with a price of around 1.5 to 2 million Tomans seems like an attractive option. .

Positive points

Great battery life
Big and bright AMOLED display
Fall detection and Emergency SOS
Light, and comfortable with a soft strap and metal frame
Has the most important health and sports capabilities

Negative points

Unable to answer calls and messages
Unable to install the application
Lack of built-in GPS
Not compatible with iPhone

Technology

The biography of Pavel Durov

Published

3 days ago

17/04/2024

pouyan

Some people call Pavel Durov the savior of personal privacy, and others call him the operator of the dark and dangerous Telegram empire; But who is the person behind one of the most popular messengers in the world?

The Biography of Pavel Durov

Russian Mark Zuckerberg, home of the tech world in self-imposed exile with a reclusive spirit and all-black outfits to pay homage to the movie The Matrix. These are the terms used to describe Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messenger; The man who revolutionized the Russian Internet by founding the VKontakte social network, stood up against government pressure, and became an angel of user privacy and data security with his libertarian beliefs.

Pavel Durov is not a fan of interviews and is rarely talked about in the media. If you want to know more about the life of this mysterious and rebellious character, follow this article.

The story of a rebellious entrepreneur

Pavel Durov; Russian Mark Zuckerberg

Tensions begin and Durov says goodbye to VK

Personal life of Pavel Durov

Nikolay Durov

Pavel Durov’s residence

Pavel Durov’s nationality

Pavel Durov’s fortune

Pavel Durov’s income from Telegram

Paul Durov’s moral qualities

Who is the Telegram team made up of?

Where is Telegram based?

Interesting facts about Pavel Durov

Pavel Durov and Telegram

Telegram vs WhatsApp

Telegram and terrorism

Golden sentences from Pavel Durov

The story of a rebellious entrepreneur

Pavel Durov, the founder of the Russian social network VKontakte, was sitting alone in his apartment in St. Petersburg when a group of men in uniform and armed with guns knocked on his door. Pavel quietly approached the door and peered into the corridor. Then he went to the window and saw many of them standing outside the building. He decided not to open the door and ignored the shouts behind the door calling his name. Then his phone rang and unknown numbers called him one after another. Powell did not return any of these calls.

Powell knew why the officers had come to his house. A few days earlier, he had received a letter from the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), a CIA-like organization, asking him to remove pages on VKontakte that were used to organize popular protests.

But Powell not only refused to do so, but the day after receiving the letter he upgraded the website to include more posts on each page. On the same day, he posted a photo of the letter along with the image of a dog in a hoodie sticking out its tongue on Twitter and wrote that this was his official response to the request of the FSB.

After an hour of Paul’s indifference, the armed men behind the door finally left the building; But in front of Pavel was a difficult battle that ultimately led to his defeat; Of course, the failure that was the beginning of his entry into the vast and exciting world of messengers and concerns about privacy and user data. If the agents had not come to his house for inspection that day and Durov had not been so involved with the idea of user data security, maybe there would be no trace of Telegram today or it would not exist in the form it is today.

Pavel Durov; Russian Mark Zuckerberg

The VKontakte platform known as VK is the most popular social network in Russia with 500 million user accounts and 90 million monthly visits (2019) and is more popular among Russian users than Facebook and Twitter. Durov launched the social network at the age of 22 and is often compared to Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. Both giants of the Internet world were born in 1984, and their serious entry into the world of virtual communication started from their student days.

Banknote rockets later inspired the Telegram icon

Durov avoids the attention of the official media, prefers black and non-luxurious clothes, and steals his gaze from the camera; But when it comes to interacting with people, he is more sociable than his American counterpart. When one of VK’s senior managers received a large bonus, Durov told the other members that he was not in it for the money. Upon hearing this statement, his colleagues asked him to return the money he received if it is true. This person agreed to throw the money out the window. Durov told him that his method of throwing money out was not creative and showed him how to make 5,000 ruble bills (about $70) into paper rockets and then throw them out the window into the street. These banknote rockets later inspired the Telegram icon.

According to Vice, Durov got the idea of creating a social network when a friend who studied in America showed him an early version of Facebook. Thus, VK was launched as a beta in September 2006 and had an official and legal organization in 2007. Even today, the design of this social network looks like the original version of Zuckerberg’s design.

For the first few years, VK was almost a Spotify-style library of all kinds of media, including black-market movies and music. According to Katya Romanovskaya, one of the authors of the satirical Twitter account @KermlinRussia, “almost everything on VK was illegal” in those days.

Tensions begin and Durov says goodbye to VK

When Putin announced his intention to run for re-election in late 2011, opposition groups flocked to VK and organized public protests by publishing news and material against Putin. Even the leader of the opposition party, Alexei Navalny, was the administrator of a VK page with over 100,000 followers, and when the website’s algorithm automatically blocked his page for excessive activity, Durov came to his rescue and changed the website’s algorithm.

VK had the full attention of the FSB intelligence agency. The day government agents knocked on Durov’s door, his rebellious spirit flared up. Durov refused to remove the protest pages and emphasized that VK is a 100% non-political organization and that removing these pages would cause users to migrate from VK and cause a severe financial blow to his team’s business.

The Kremlin left VK alone for a while; But in early 2013, Durov’s troubles began again. In a report, Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta released several hacked emails between Durov and the Kremlin’s “main ideologist,” Vladislav Surkov, and claimed the VKontakte founder had been working with the FSB for years.

According to the editor of RuNet Echo, many VK users did not believe such a report; But this was only the beginning of the campaign against Dwarf. In April of the same year, a car belonging to Ilya Perkopsky, the chief executive of VK, ran over a police officer. The driver ran away from the scene, But the police claimed that the person behind the wheel was Durov. In response to this accusation, Durov said that he does not know how to drive.

A few days later, police officers began searching VK’s offices in Moscow, according to the Moscow Times. The reason for this inspection was announced as “part of the investigation into the accident and fleeing the scene”. The next day, the two main investors of VK, Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and Lev Lviv, announced their intention to sell their 48% stake. Investors were looking to sell their shares because of the rift between them and Durov, according to multiple sources. According to Interfax, the value of this social network at that time was 2 billion dollars.

Durov fled to Buffalo, New York later that month and began work on his new project, Telegram. The police finally stopped pursuing the accident case.

At that time, 88% of VK shares were held by government supporters and 12% were still held by Durov. Durov announced that he did not intend to sell his shares and his activity on this platform continued until the end of 2013. On his VK page, Pavel wrote about the website’s growth compared to other social networks, including Facebook and WhatsApp, and published an infographic showing that in October 2013, VK was the top Android app in Moscow.

But in January 2014, Durov announced that he had sold his entire 12% stake to the mobile phone operator Megaphone for $300 million. In an interview with Motherboard magazine, he said: “It was clear that my 12% share did not give me much decision-making power, But it could be used to limit my freedom in critical situations.” With Durov selling his shares, VK was now 100% under the financial control of Kremlin allies.

Durov lost his financial investment; But for how long did he remain as the general manager of VK? On April 1, 2014, he finally announced his resignation from the board of directors of VK citing the excessive involvement of new shareholders in the management of the website. Of course, two days later, he claimed that his resignation was April’s lie and tried to withdraw the letter; But the shareholders did not allow him to do this. On April 22, Durov found out that he was officially fired from VK.

Durov was forced to sell his shares due to political pressure and had to say goodbye to the big company he founded forever, But this happened at the right time. He said in an interview with Motherboard:

The Russian Internet market fell dramatically after this incident. In a way, I am grateful to the shareholders and political forces that made me sell my shares. Now I am more satisfied that I can serve the audience on a wider scale than the world.

Personal life of Pavel Durov

Pavel Valerievich Durov was born on October 10, 1984, in Saint Petersburg and grew up in an educated family. Pavel is the second child in the family and has an older brother named Nikolai, who was with him in launching the social network VK and Telegram.

As a child, Pavel had to move to Italy with his family because of his father’s job and studied first grade in the city of Turin. Two years later, the whole family returned to Russia, and after four years of secondary education, Pavel went to the Dmitri Fadeev School of Mathematics and Physics at St. Petersburg State University, where he studied all subjects, including four foreign languages, in-depth.

From the age of 11, Pavel was very interested in programming with his brother. After finishing high school with excellent grades, he studied English language translation at the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg University.

Pavel Durov speaks 8 languages including Farsi

According to information on Pavel’s official VK page, he speaks eight foreign languages: Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Latin and even Farsi. Of course, it is not possible to say how true this information is.

In university, Pavel was one of the best students with a high level of intelligence. He has repeatedly won linguistics, programming, and design olympiads, has received scholarships from the Government of the Russian Federation and the President of the Russian Federation, and is a three-time winner of the Potanin Innovation Award.

While a student, he launched the website durov.com, which housed a database of educational materials for humanities students. Then he came up with the idea of another website (spbgu.ru) where St. Petersburg University students could communicate with each other through its forum.

On this site, each student had his personal account, which included information such as name, faculty, and list of friends and groups. Any user could also blog on this website. This is how the initial version of the VK social network was born. To promote his website, Powell organized beauty and design contests at the university and sometimes engaged in heated discussions with an anonymous account to create excitement on the website’s forum.

Durov spends most of his time on innovation, self-improvement, and entrepreneurship. Now everyone knows him as the founder of Telegram, which in a way embodies all his ideals in the field of user data security.

Nikolay Durov

We all know Telegram with Pavel Durov; While Pavel’s brother, Nikolai, also played a big role in the formation of this popular messenger.

In fact, Nikolai’s role in the development of all the projects discussed, from the durov.com website to this Telegram, is very prominent. He showed interest in natural sciences from his childhood; While Powell’s interest was in the field of humanities. Despite this difference, these two brothers had a common interest and that was programming.

Nikolai, who was a talented programmer, wrote a few lines of code for the VKontakte platform when it was still in the early stages of development, and then, as the popularity of this social network grew, he became more involved in its development and eventually took the position of technical manager and senior developer of the company. Nikolai worked on this platform until 2014 when Pavel resigned from the VK board and took the entire team out of the country with him.

In an interview with Medium, Powell said that his brother played a big role in developing his ideas. He mentions Nikolai as a genius who solved complex mathematical equations quickly in TV competitions, read a lot of books, and came first in almost all math competitions.

Pavel Durov’s residence

Durov left Russia in April 2014 and said he would never return to his homeland. Because the internet rules in this country are not clear it is impossible to do online business there.

Pavel is now a bit of a homebody, traveling around the world with his team of programmers and usually not staying in one country for more than a few months. Since leaving Russia, he has lived in Berlin, London and Singapore.

Currently, he and the Telegram development team live in Dubai. It is written in the FAQ section of Telegram that they are satisfied with life in Dubai; But as soon as the internet laws of this country change, they are ready to change their location.

Pavel Durov’s citizenship

In the spring of 2013, Powell received the citizenship of this small country by donating $250,000 to the St. Kitts and Nevis island fund in the Caribbean and investing in it. With a passport to this country, he can travel without a visa to 132 countries of the world, including the European Union and England.

Of course, Pavel’s new citizenship was revealed only in 2014; That is when he had officially left Russia, and this showed that Pavel had been thinking about leaving his homeland for a long time. Pavel Durov’s fortune

According to Forbes magazine, Pavel Durov’s financial situation has been growing since 2016. In the ranking of the 200 richest Russians in 2016, he ranked 135th with 600 million dollars, and by 2020, he was promoted to the 30th position with a fortune equal to 3.4 billion dollars.

Pavel Durov’s income from Telegram

Pavel made a fortune of 500 million dollars from the sale of his 12% stake in VK and is very interested in the field of cryptocurrency. He also managed to collect about 1.7 billion dollars from investors for the development of the Telegram-based blockchain known as TON; A project that, of course, failed; But Durov does not earn any income from Telegram.

Telegram is completely free, without ads and in-app payments, and Durov pays the cost of maintaining this platform completely from his own pocket. Of course, Durov has announced in a post that if he runs out of money to run Telegram, he will probably have to turn to public donations or in-app payments; But he will never enter the world of advertising.

Paul Durov’s moral qualities

Pavel is a supporter of the school of libertarianism in the political and economic fields. This view of his is clearly evident in his unwillingness to cooperate with government organizations. He believes that no person or structure has the right to violate private property or personal information of people.

Powell supports the standardization of the educational system; Because he believes that modern schools in the West are a relic of the industrial era and educate people with stereotyped and closed views. He predicts that education in the future will be interactive and decentralized.

Powell supports high taxes on industries that are active in the extraction of raw materials and the abolition of taxes in the field of information and customs. He also believes that taxpayers should choose what projects their taxes will be spent on.

Durov also believes that the cancellation of registration, passports, entry visas, and military service is necessary, and he considers these to be the cornerstones of the feudal system. In his opinion, movement restrictions cause brains to escape.

Pavel is not interested in doing interviews and prefers to be in contact with the audience directly through his posts on the Telegram channel and website.

When Pavel was 33 years old, he stated in a post that he had not consumed sugar, meat, or fast food for a long time, did not drink energy drinks, tea, and coffee, turned away from nicotine and alcohol and does not watch TV.

Who is the Telegram team made up of?

Telegram is run by Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai. Pavel supports Telegram from the economic and ideological aspects and Nikolai from the technological aspect. To build Telegram, Nikolai created a unique custom data protocol called MTProto, which is open-source, secure, and optimized for use in multiple data centers. Details of the other people involved in the project are unknown, although Powell mentioned in a 2016 interview that his team consisted of 15 people.

Where is Telegram based?

Most of the Telegram developers were born in St. Petersburg, and after the tension with the Russian government, they left the country with Pavel and his brother and settled in Berlin, London, and Singapore for a while.

Telegram team members are currently in Dubai and are ready to change their place of residence again if the internet regulations of this country change.

Interesting facts about Pavel Durov

Powell dresses distinctively. In the photos, he always wears black clothes, and this is a kind of homage to his character Neo in the movie Matrix; For this reason, he is sometimes called Neo-Russian. In a book about Durov, Nikolai Kononov wrote that “he sees himself as the engineer of his own world”, and this description is somewhat consistent with the world of The Matrix.

Pavel learned to code while in school and used this skill to change the welcome screen image of the school computers to annoy a teacher he didn’t like. Pavel has a close relationship with his brother, who is also a skilled coder.

Pavel launched the VKontakte social network at the age of 22. The VKontakte office was located on the fifth and sixth floors of the iconic Singer House building in St. Petersburg.

In 2011, when Russian authorities asked Durov to remove some anti-government posts from VK, Durov responded by posting a photo of a dog wearing a hoodie and sticking out its tongue.

In 2012, Pavel and some VK employees made paper rockets worth more than a thousand dollars and threw them out the window. The value of each rocket was about 70 dollars. This movement later inspired the Telegram icon.

According to reports, Durov spends $1 million of his own money every month to run Telegram. To date, this platform has not generated a single dollar for Durov.

The number of monthly active Telegram users reached 100 million in 2016. Durov celebrated this success by throwing a big party in Barcelona.

Durov planned to raise 2 billion dollars from investors to run his company with the initial offering of a coin called “Gram” on the Telegram Open Network blockchain, But this project was stopped by the decision of the American court.

The popularity of Telegram is increasing every year. In 2021, the number of active Telegram users reached 500 million people per month. Telegram is most popular in Iran, Russia, Malaysia, Ukraine, India, Italy, Spain and Saudi Arabia.

Pavel Durov and Telegram

Founded in 2013, Telegram uses a secure end-to-end encryption method that makes it nearly impossible to decrypt messages. This feature, along with being free without a single ad or in-app purchases, has made Telegram take a significant share of the market from Facebook Messenger and other competitors; But this platform with 500 million active users per month is far behind WhatsApp with 2 billion users and Facebook Messenger with 1.3 billion users; But Durov says that the growth of Telegram is fast and most new users enter the world of Telegram through the suggestion of other users.

Our growth depends only on our users who recommend their friends to download and use Telegram. Every day, 350 thousand new users register in Telegram, without any effort on our part.

Durf attaches great importance to the principle of simplicity in the design of Telegram. In an interview with Wired in 2016, he said:

15 billion messages are sent daily through Telegram. Telegram’s main engineering team consists of 15 people, and obviously with this number, we had to automate many tasks and hand them over to scripts and artificial intelligence.

Telegram does not generate a single dollar of revenue for Durov, it has no permanent office and consists of a very small team. Before settling in Dubai, the Telegram team moved every two to four months. Dorf has announced that his team is ready to leave Dubai for a new destination if needed.

The company is so confident in the security of its proprietary protocol, called MTProto, developed by Nikolai, that it is offering a $200,000 reward to anyone who can hack it. It’s not an uncommon move to offer rewards to users who find bugs in products, But bounties of this magnitude are usually only reserved for critical bugs in widely used programs such as Windows.

According to Durov, no one has succeeded in hacking MTProto so far; But a Russian man who managed to find a serious problem in Telegram in 2014 was rewarded with $100,000.

Telegram is open source and allows any developer to create their own Telegram even for desktop computers. Today, most new messaging services, including WhatsApp, create applications for use in all situations and do not allow disparate developers to access their code. Of course, they can’t be blamed, because it’s difficult to maintain a centralized language and a single security model across several different applications. Meanwhile, monetizing a platform requires more planning than monetizing a simple paid app.

However, the VKontakte platform has gained a lot of success by allowing developers to build their own alternatives from it. More importantly, Telegram operates as a non-profit organization and does not intend to charge users for its services or sell their information to third parties or governments.

The company wrote on its FAQ page:

Telegram is not built for monetization and never accepts advertising or external investment. We are not looking to create a “user base”, but we are looking to create messaging for people.

In a post on Telegram, Durov announced that in 2021, to manage the costs of a platform with 500 million users, he will add a monetization section to Telegram. This section includes new paid features, paid stickers, and a platform called Ad Platform for commercial channel owners to generate income.

Telegram vs WhatsApp

The main difference between Telegram and WhatsApp is its highly encrypted structure, open API for access by developers and other users, and its strictly anti-commercial manifesto. In a world where Facebook simply buys its competitors (including WhatsApp for a whopping $22 billion), Durov’s refusal to sell Telegram is truly admirable; And of course, we should not forget its many, completely free and artistic stickers.

Users are becoming more aware of the importance of their privacy and looking for ways to protect their data. For this reason, Telegram has not sold a single byte of data from its users to any third party since its launch, which has significantly increased the popularity of this platform.

However strict privacy policies and strong data encryption are not enough to attract users who have depended on WhatsApp for years. In order to be able to compete with giants like WhatsApp and Facebook in the suffocating market of messengers, Telegram needs to be better in every way: faster message transmission speed, more beautiful design, more features, and attractive features in every update. It is only in this way that it is possible to provide better privacy and security than WhatsApp to users who may not be sufficiently concerned about security.

Telegram and terrorism

Telegram’s strict policy on privacy and its non-cooperation with the authorities of countries to provide users’ information have made some people consider this platform dangerous and a place for terrorists and criminals to operate without supervision. In fact, in a new report published in June 2021, the German magazine Spiegel described Telegram as a dark empire, the most dangerous messenger, and the “equivalent of the dark web in the pocket” of users.

Critics of Telegram describe it as the dark web in users’ pockets

In 2016, Telegram blocked 78 public channels promoting ISIS ideology. Durov told Wired that the company is building tools to deal with malicious channels more effectively.

Is this enough? Probably not, as we are a small team and trying to hire more people to review reports and requests. We are gradually building a tool to automate this process. All this takes time, but we try to consider it one of our priorities.

In response to criticism of Telegram’s 100% protection of user data, Durov said in one of his interviews during the Mobile World Congress:

The political solutions proposed against cryptography are not supposed to be effective against terrorism. If you block a site like Telegram, terrorists won’t even notice.

Golden sentences from Pavel Durov

– Don’t give up until you have a really exciting idea. If you’re on the fence about a decision, go get some sleep and see how you feel about it when you wake up.

– In order to accomplish something, you must have enthusiasm, curiosity, and the ability to facilitate the process. The meaning of making it easier is to remove all the additions and focus completely on the essence of the matter.

– Success means being excited about what you are doing and focusing on it.

– If your mind is busy with several projects and you can’t concentrate well, go read books unrelated to business and technology. Give your mind a break and let it think about different topics in comfort for a while.

– People value social status too much. What difference does it make if you live in London or the countryside? As long as you have internet, there is no difference between the two. Life in the village is healthier and cheaper, But people prefer to live in expensive cities and pay a lot of money for rent. The only reason they are in that city is to have a job so they can pay rent and buy expensive appliances. This is a vicious circle.

– If you want your life to be simpler, you need to get rid of other people’s voices in your head. We are too influenced by people around us; Our relatives and friends and what they think about what constitutes success or what is good or bad. We must completely get rid of these influences. We should be able to be indifferent to what others think or say about our work. After this step, we should focus only on what we need.

Where there is no competition, there is no progress

– Spend more time in solitude and silence and be happy about it. People get addicted to being in groups. For example, in America, when two people sit together in silence, they feel awkward. Sometimes you need to have a space that is not influenced by anyone.

– The most important personality traits for a founder are love and passion for building, curiosity, self-discipline, passion, and persistence.

– What people don’t know about Renaissance men is that these people didn’t pursue several different professions at the same time. Maybe some of them were like this, But most of them would choose one area and concentrate on building it completely and then move on to the next project. We humans can do many things, but not simultaneously.

– When something happens that I can’t change, I prefer to think about the good sides of it because every event, even the most tragic ones, has good and bad sides. You just have to see them and focus on them. It’s useless to be upset about something you can’t change. You have to adapt to the situation and think about what can be done with what you have.

– Learn foreign languages to deepen your understanding of the world and to open unprecedented opportunities for learning progress, and career growth.

– The value of money is overrated, because making and creating is more attractive than consuming, and the inner state is incomparably more important than the outer world.

– Where there is no competition, there is no progress.

– The value of communication and conversation has been greatly exaggerated. An hour alone is more useful than a week of talking.

Emphasizing secure communication and libertarian ideas, Pavel Durov is a person with independent thinking who has covered these ideas comprehensively in the development of the Telegram project. What do you think about this character and his moral qualities? Is the Dwarf Telegram a dark and dangerous empire or a glimmer of light in the insecure world of the Internet?

Technology

Is Telegram really safe?

Published

3 days ago

17/04/2024

pouyan

Telegram claims to have very high security, but it is not in the list of the most secure messengers in the world; What is the matter?

Is Telegram really safe?

Telegram is not very popular in America and Canada for some reason (140 million monthly users of Facebook Messenger against only 10 million users of Telegram!), But it is extremely popular all over the world and its number of monthly users reached 800 million in 2023. This service, which was filtered in Iran a few years ago, still has a large number of users and by adding new features in each update, it increases the number of users day by day.

Telegram, with its diverse capabilities, fast performance, and special benefits such as free cloud space, is definitely considered one of the best, and for this reason, it has many fans in Iran; But when it comes to user security and privacy, everyone has a different answer. If you ask the founder of Telegram, he says that this messenger has great security, but this platform is not on the list of the most secure messengers in the world. In the following article, we have tried to find a convincing answer to this controversial question as much as possible.

Telegram is born

The date of birth of the Telegram messenger application goes back to August 23, 1392, which was first released for the iOS operating system. At that time, Telegram did not have many features, but due to its cloud infrastructure and the permanent storage of chats and content sent in the company’s cloud servers, it was still one ahead of its fierce competitors, Viber and WhatsApp.

Nikolay and Pavel Durov, founders and developers of Telegram, released the Android version of this messenger after two months. Since the Durov brothers were from Russia and owned a large part of the shares of the social network VK, there were many concerns about the security of information on this messenger and the possibility of the Russian government controlling and monitoring users.

The social network VK was also developed by the Durov brothers, but according to them, the company is now owned by the Russian government. Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, left Russia in 2014 due to pressure to provide user information to the government and sold all his shares in VK.

Although the business name “Telegram” is registered as a limited liability company in Dubai, there is not much information about the offices, infrastructure, and possible sponsors of this messenger. According to the claims of former employees of VK, a number of Telegram developers live in Russia and in the city of St. Petersburg, but Pavel Durov called this claim unfounded and said that in order to avoid pressure from governments and protect the security of users, the Telegram team moves from one country to another every year. places

Durov brothers; Nikolai Durov on the right and Pavel Durov on the left

According to Pavel Durov, after leaving Russia in 2014, he decided to establish the main office of the Telegram messenger in Berlin, but due to the pressure of the German government to access user information, Telegram had to leave this country and transfer the servers to another country. It became another

Since 2017, Telegram has chosen Dubai as its headquarters. In the FAQ section of Telegram, it is written that they are satisfied with life in Dubai; But as soon as the internet laws of this country change, they are ready to change their location.

Is Telegram safe and does it protect our data?

If we want to answer briefly, Telegram is safe in most cases; This means that all exchanged messages are partially encrypted, but end-to-end encryption, which makes it impossible for even the service provider to access the messages, is only available in calls and Secret Chat; While messengers such as WhatsApp and Signal support end-to-end encryption by default in normal chats

Of course, another advantage of Secret Chat in Telegram is that you can automatically delete sent messages, images, audio messages, and videos after they have been viewed by the recipient of the message.

These days, end-to-end encryption is the first word in the security of messengers; Because when you use end-to-end encryption or E2EE to send an email or message to someone, no hacker, neither government nor even corporate, can access the text of your message. In this type of encryption, messages are mixed in such a way that only the intended sender or receiver can decode the message, and therefore, it is considered the highest level of security.

There is no end-to-end encryption in normal Telegram messages

However many users do not know that in normal messages and content sent in Telegram groups and channels, there is no end-to-end encryption and the ability to automatically clear posts, and to increase the security of messages, it is necessary to use secret chat. As a result, when you send a message normally on Telegram, the content of the message is stored and accessible on Telegram servers. Telegram’s main reason for this decision is that most of the groups and channels are public and use them to send messages to a large number of users.

On the other hand, malicious users and profit-seeking people can use the great potential of Telegram groups and channels to commit fraud and publish immoral, misleading, and violent content.

In the past years, some Telegram groups and channels caused big problems by publishing inappropriate content. Of course, like other social networks, Telegram has its own rules and policies, and in this regard, it has developed algorithms to deal with content that violates its rules; However, it seems that he was able to use these algorithms 100% effectively. Finally, users themselves must report inappropriate content.

For more protection against this type of content, you can activate options such as Restricted Mode, which automatically detects and filters inappropriate images, by referring to Telegram’s security and privacy settings from Settings > Privacy and Security.

Another feature that is recommended to disable is People Nearby, which makes it possible to communicate with users near you. This feature can become a dangerous tool in the hands of hackers to access your exact geographical location. To disable People Nearby, go to Contacts > Find People Nearby and click on the Stop Showing Me option; This will change the option to “Make Myself Visible”.

Only the Telegram application is open source; Messages are encrypted with a proprietary protocol

For even more security, you can completely cut off Telegram’s access to your location; To do this on iOS, go to Settings > Privacy and Security > Location Services > Telegram and select Never from the Allow Location Access tab. On Android phones, go to Settings > Apps > Telegram and turn off the Location option from the Permissions section.

Another important thing you should know about Telegram security is that its openness is only related to the client application, and this messenger uses a special protocol called MTProto to encrypt user messages on the server side. Security researchers believe that to increase the security of the system, the use of standard encryption protocols is preferable to proprietary protocols. The reason for this is the possibility of identifying the vulnerability of protocols and fixing them quickly.

Does Telegram collect user data?

Like other messengers, Telegram stores some user data on its servers for 12 months; Including username, username change history, details of the device on which the messenger is installed, application usage habits, and users’ IP address. Of course, none of this data is used for advertising or commercial purposes, but there is always a possibility that under the pressure of governments, Telegram will have to provide this information.

How do we increase the security of our Telegram?

To increase the security of Telegram, we recommend the following steps:

Enabling Two-Step Verification

To activate this feature, go to Settings – Privacy and Security. Note that by enabling two-step verification, the possibility of hacker interception and access to your user account is almost zero.

Limit the information you share with others

Hide your mobile number, bio text, and profile picture from others. Also, in chatting with people you don’t know, strictly avoid providing information such as your real name, location, and any other information that will lead to finding your other accounts on the Internet.

Use secret chat as much as possible

Sometimes friends and family members may be in the same group, but to ensure the maximum security of chats, use secret chat with end-to-end encryption support instead of regular chat.

Join groups and channels with caution

If you don’t know a group or channel, never join it. Remember that the channel admin and other group members can access your account and save information such as your name and profile picture. Also, avoid emotional attachment to people you don’t know.

Avoid sending money or your bank card information to strangers

Today, fraudsters may pretend to be a support specialist, bank employee, or anyone else you think is trustworthy in order to access your bank account. In order to avoid fraud in Telegram, remember that you never need to pay money or share bank account information through Telegram to do anything. After all, in many cases, by checking the user ID or the person’s number and asking the relevant organizations, it is possible to verify the fraudsters’ claim.

Avoid clicking on suspicious links

If a stranger poses as a support expert or office worker and forces you to click on anonymous links, never accept their request. Due to the fact that most phishing attacks, infecting the victim’s system with malware, stealing information, and internet sabotage are done using malicious and anonymous links, avoid clicking on these types of links.

If something is too dreamy, doubt it

We all know that the probability of winning the lottery, finding amazing discounts, or encountering rare opportunities in life is very low, and if someone makes such claims on the Telegram platform, we should doubt his claim and identity. The best way to deal with such situations is not to respond to strangers.