August 19, 2020

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Author: Matthew Turner

What’s Wrong With Saved Messages On Telegram?

Telegram users told about a new method of deception: scammers disguise their accounts as “Saved Messages”. This feature is used to intercept important notes.

Recently, we’ve written about a serious Data Leak of Telegram User Base.

But now, according to users, scammers use a fake Saved Messages account. Using it, they write to users and immediately delete their messages. If one of these users decides to go to “saved messages” through search, they will see a fake account in the search results — and may send their note, message, photo, or something else.

Saved messages Telegram — what does it mean?

Saved messages — a special telegram contact. Some ways to use it:

• Transferring files between devices
• TODO-lists, tasks
• Storing links and contacts

The saved messages feature lets you save messages from any chat to your cloud storage folder. You can save messages even with music, movies, and photos attachments.

In this cloud, all saved files will be linked to the chats where they were saved from. As a result, you can quickly return to the chat from which the file was saved.

Some people transfer files from their phone to their PC in this way. For that, you just need to have Telegram on your phone and your computer.

What’s wrong with the saved messages function now?

-So, it turns out that Telegram has been hacked?

In fact, no. Scammers have not hacked anything and intercepted your personal information. The main focus is on the users’ inattentiveness who are used to viewing the saved messages folder in the list of their dialogs. Scammers create accounts with the same name, send users any message, and delete it from both sides. The dialog remains in the list of users’ chats.

The only difference between the internal folder with saved messages and the one that has been created artificially is the online icon. The built-in folder does not have such a sign, but the fake one has.

*It is worth noting that Telegram does not prohibit creating an account with the same name as the built-in folder since it considers this name an accessible one.

How to protect yourself?

• Firstly. Be careful. 

It sounds corny, but still: as you can see in the screenshot above, the fake “Saved Messages” account has an online tag — the real “Saved Messages” does not have it in the search results.

• Secondly. Pin your favorites to the list of dialogs. 

If you use this feature frequently, pin it in the chat list so it will always be at hand. If you don’t want to do this, remember that you can always access your current saved messages via Telegram settings: for instance, in the iOS version, this button is located directly under the user’s name, and on Android and in Telegram Desktop for macOS — in the side menu.

• Thirdly. Think about what you store in your saved messages. 

Undoubtedly, this is a very convenient mechanism to keep important information at hand and have access to it from all your devices. But remember: if someone can hack your account, they will get access not only to conversations (except secret chats), but also to everything that was in the “saves messages”.

The best way of data storage

Today, all important and confidential data can be stored in an encrypted crypto container. Utopia P2P has such a container. Utopia is a decentralized ecosystem that allows you to use the Internet safely and anonymously. There are several built-in tools for secure Internet work: instant messenger, browser, email, crypto wallet and crypto container.

All data is stored on individual servers and no one has access to it due to complex encryption based on an elliptical curve and 256-bit AES.

More information about other protected tools for secure messaging, you can find in the article Decentralized Email.