Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services) has bought the encrypted messaging platform Wickr to enable secure working from home for employees.
Many companies are moving to hybrid work environments since the COVID-19 pandemic and are increasingly focusing on protecting their communication with business partners across remote locations.
Wickr offers protected communication and self-destructing messaging technology over text or calls. Wickr, alongside similar ultra private communications apps such as Signal, has become popular for encrypted chats since the increased awareness of the privacy and data requirements in other apps, such as WhatsApp.
AWS is offering Wickr services effective immediately and will continue to provide services to existing Wickr customers, channel, and business partners. It appears the acquisition was motivated by the need to comply with security conscious enterprises and government agencies’ security requirements, and it is not stated if this will be rolled out to all consumers.
Wickr has always been favoured by high-profile organisations such as governments, journalists and whistleblowers as it doesn’t require you to reveal your phone number or email address to use it. It will be interesting to see if this changes due to the acquisition, and if Wickr becomes compromised with the change of owner. Those who are conscious of monopolisation could argue this is another step in Amazon having full control over the market. Nevertheless, the move highlights that companies are taking security more seriously, and that is definitely a step in the right direction.