The company (founded in Israel and acquired by Japan’s Rakuten in 2014) says the new services will be rolled out globally in the coming weeks, starting today in four countries where Viber centers most of its R&D: Brazil, Belarus, Israel and Thailand.
The new privacy features will work across Android, iOS, PCs and Mac desktops, with the encryption coming with the latest app update (6.0) and a re-authentication of the app (via QR Code) to turn the feature on.
Viber’s encryption will come with varying levels of security, the company said, which will show up in the form of a color-coded lock on the right side of the screen. A grey lock will mean the conversation (voice or text) is fully encrypted. You can tap on the lock to confirm this.
Users also have the option of selecting a green lock, which will mean that you can additionally authenticate users before each conversation or to continually monitor them to make sure the users are verified.
A red lock, meanwhile, comes up if a trusted user does not pass re-authentication at his/her end. This could be because a device has changed, or because someone is trying to access the data via a man-in-the-middle attack, Viber notes, meaning that users need to re-authenticate for security and encryption to come back into effect.
Along with the encryption, there are some other privacy features getting added into the latest version of the app. Hidden chats will give users the ability to essentially “hide” certain conversations from their usage log, accessible only if you know a specified four-digit PIN.
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