- BlackBerry survey finds 98% of government and infrastructure security managers rely on consumer messaging apps hosted overseas.
- 83% use WhatsApp for sensitive chats, despite critical encryption knowledge gaps
- The report warns that encryption does not protect metadata, identity theft, or compromised devices; highlights the urgent need for sovereign and reliable communications infrastructure
Government and infrastructure workers fundamentally misunderstand the security of the communications applications they use, putting their organization, and the data and information that flows through it, at great risk. This is according to The State of Secure Communications 2026, a survey conducted by BlackBerry Secure Communications.
Surveying 700 security decision-makers in government and critical infrastructure in the US, UK, Canada and Singapore, researchers found that virtually everyone (98%) relies on foreign-hosted platforms that were not designed for confidential communications or high-security environments.
In fact, more than eight in ten people (83%) use WhatsApp for sensitive discussions within their organization.
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Misconceptions about encryption
Worse yet, almost all security managers (88%) are confident their current email setup is secure. This trust, as BlackBerry discovered, is based on a “fundamental misreading” of what these platforms actually protect.
“The report reveals critical gaps in encryption knowledge among executives responsible for protecting communications,” the report states.
With this in mind, the report states that more than half (52%) believe encryption protects metadata such as location data, IP addresses and communication patterns. Just under half (47%) believe encryption prevents spoofing, deepfake, or spoofing attacks, and 41% believe communications remain secure even after a device has been compromised.
“Consumer messaging applications were never designed to handle sensitive communications, protect privacy, or meet the demands of high-security environments,” said Christine Gadsby, chief security advisor at BlackBerry Secure Communications.
“They rely on phone numbers, not verified identities – and encryption protects the channel, not who is in it. This gap is already being exploited, as recent intelligence alerts show, and governments and critical infrastructure organizations are responding by moving toward communications infrastructure that they own and trust.”
Ownership and control of the infrastructure behind sensitive communications emerges as a “critical blind spot,” Blackberry said, noting that it “reveals gaps” in data sovereignty. Yet more than half (55%) of those surveyed said they prioritize sovereign control.
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