Social networking giant Facebook has begun rolling out an "end-to-end encrypted" feature for voice and video calls made via its Messenger app, aiming at safeguarding conversations between users from any snoop attack.
"The content of your messages and calls in an end-to-end encrypted conversation is protected from the moment it leaves your device to the moment it reaches the receiver's device. This means that nobody else, including Facebook, can see or listen to what's sent or said", Ruth Kricheli, Messenger director of product management, Facebook said in a blog post.
Launched in August 2011, the Facebook Messenger app is used by over 1.3 billion people around the world every month, recently published statistics reveal.
Along with offering voice and video calls, the app allows users to share locations, chat in groups, and exchange pictures, videos, and audio files via its platform.
"People expect their messaging apps to be secure and private", Kricheli noted in the blog post, explaining the decision to encrypt the Messenger app.
Other messaging apps like Telegram and Facebook-owned WhatsApp also offer end-to-end encryption to users. In the coming years, more apps are likely to offer the feature as it is seemingly becoming an industry standard in times of increased cybercrimes and attacks.
In the coming days, encryption is also likely to come to Instagram's direct message (DM) inbox.
"We'll also kick off a limited test with adults in certain countries that lets them opt-in to end-to-end encrypted messages and calls for one-on-one conversations on Instagram", Kricheli added.
Cyber security experts across the globe have suggested that tech giants strengthen the security on their platforms to protect users from spy attacks after the Pegasus scandal. Thousands of journalists, politicians, scientists, and businesspersons around the world were under secret surveillance by the Israeli spyware, the report by Amnesty International claimed.