WISeKey’s WIShelter App Now Includes a Messaging Service Allowing Secure Mobile Communications Between Authenticated and Trusted Users

WISeKey’s WIShelter App Now Includes a Messaging Service Allowing Secure Mobile Communications Between Authenticated and Trusted Users

Reacting to the outrage and growing mistrust among the users of messaging apps, WISeKey is making available its digital identity technology to other messaging systems.

WIShelter app offers secure messaging services plus related functions, including end-to-end encrypted voice calls, file and picture sharing.

WIShelter has easy-to-use features similar to other well-known messaging apps but offers authentication and trust.

Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wisekey.wisehomesafe&hl=en_CA

Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wishelter/id1503693323

Geneva – January 11, 2020 – WISeKey International Holding Ltd (“WISeKey”, SIX: WIHN / Nasdaq: WKEY), a leading cybersecurity, AI and IoT company, today announced that its WIShelter platform now includes a secured messaging system of communication between authenticated users.

Over the years, there have been many debates related to user privacy issues and how messaging apps that use advertising as revenue model are handling these concerns. The recent events where some messaging service providers shared users’ private information without their consent and knowledge have highlighted that breach of trust remains a major issue for all, and should make us more aware of the importance of data privacy. Reacting to the outrage and growing mistrust among the users of these messaging service providers, WISeKey is making available its secured digital identity technology to the service of messaging systems.  Easy to install and operate on any mobile, WIShelter messaging offers the same functionality and usability as most popular messaging apps.

WIShelter app uses digital identity secured by WISeKey, and allows its users to geo-localize other certified users and stablish secure communications between them using end-to-end encryption. To ensure data privacy, each user’s Personal Identifiable Information (PKI) is kept encrypted, never disclosed without the user’s consent, and offers secure messaging services plus related functions, including end-to-end encrypted voice calls and file and picture sharing. It is just as easy-to-use as other well-known messaging apps but the added value of WIShelter is authentication and trust.

Data gathered by the WIShelter app is only stored on the mobile phone of the users and is never data mined or used for advertisement. Its messaging service includes security functionalities that can remediate threats like phishing, ransomware or identity theft.

Strong authentication is a mechanism able to enhance security by complementing the traditional username/password access to online services with additional security factors, like biometry, hardware tokens and one-time-passwords. Additionally, the new messaging option allows confidential messages to be exchanged encrypted, and to affix a “digital signature” to the outgoing message, ensuring the recipient that the message comes from a genuine person and that has not been manipulated during transit.  New contacts on WIShelter can be added by scanning a contact QR code directly from the other user’s WIShelter app (this is the fastest and most secure way) or by importing contacts directly from the phone or from other social network messaging services.

The app is on BETA 2.0 version and will include substantial improvements in the near future, including user’s feedback and enhanced security and authentication technologies. The app is provided at no cost for the users by the OISTE Foundation.  Founded in Switzerland in 1998, OISTE was created with the objectives of promoting the use and adoption of international standards to secure electronic transactions, expand the use of digital certification and ensure the interoperability of certification authorities’ e-transaction systems. The OISTE Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, regulated by article 80 et seq. of the Swiss Civil Code. OISTE is an organization in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) and belongs to the Not-for-Profit constituency (NPOC) of the ICANN.  For more  information visit: http://www.oiste.org.

About WISeKey
WISeKey (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey microprocessors secure the pervasive computing shaping today’s Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an install base of over 1.5 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens etc.).  WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications to predict the failure of their equipment before it happens.

Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/WISeKey’s Swiss based cryptographic Root of Trust (“RoT”) provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit www.wisekey.com.

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