Hacking of the most secure messenger in the world led to the leakage of personal information of tens of thousands of users

EU police cracked the encryption protocol in the so-called «super-secure» Sky ECC messenger. They read the correspondence of 70,000 users in search of criminals and managed to identify and arrest more than 23 suspects, including three potential drug lords. Representatives of the service assured that it was impossible to hack.

Police arrested three people whom law enforcement officials called «the biggest Balkan drug lords.» The arrest took place in Belgrade, Serbia. The police hacked the attackers' chat on Sky ECC back in 2022. Although at the time, the service developers claimed that it was impossible.

Sky ECC is a paid messaging application with end-to-end encryption developed by Sky Global. The same company manufactured and sold Google, Apple, Nokia, and BlackBerry smartphones without GPS modules, cameras, and microphones. Thus, through Sky ECC and special smartphones, criminals could secretly communicate with «colleagues in the shop».

In connection with the recent arrests, European police also recalled two other encrypted communication services — EncroChat and ANOM — which were also hacked and soon closed. Like Sky ECC, these paid communication programs were popular among criminals to hide their illegal operations. Data from all three services has been used by law enforcement as evidence in thousands of arrests.

Although the use of data from private correspondence as evidence for arrest has resulted in several legal actions by the accused, the courts always side with the police in such situations.