- BlackBerry Survey Reveals 98% of Government and Infrastructure Security Leaders Rely on Foreign-Hosted Consumer Messaging Apps
- 83% use WhatsApp for sensitive discussions, despite critical gaps in encryption knowledge
- The report warns that encryption does not protect metadata, phishing, or compromised devices; highlights the urgent need for a sovereign and reliable communications infrastructure
Government and infrastructure workers fundamentally do not understand the security of the communications applications they use, putting their organizations and the data and information that flows through them at great risk. This is according to The State of Secure Communications 2026, a survey conducted by BlackBerry Secure Communications.
By surveying 700 security decision makers across government and critical infrastructure in the US, UK, Canada and Singapore, researchers found that virtually all (98%) rely on offshore-hosted platforms that were not designed for sensitive communications or high-security environments.
In fact, more than eight in ten (83%) use WhatsApp for sensitive discussions within their organizations.
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Misconceptions about encryption
To make matters worse, almost all (88%) security leaders are confident that their current messaging setup is secure. This reliance, as BlackBerry discovered, is based on a “fundamental misinterpretation” of what these platforms actually protect.
“The report reveals critical gaps in encryption literacy among the very leaders responsible for safeguarding communications,” he said.
With this in mind, the report says that more than half (52%) believe that encryption protects metadata such as location data, IP addresses and communication patterns. Just under half (47%) believe encryption prevents phishing, deepfake or spoofing attacks, and 41% assume communications remain secure even after a device has been compromised.
“Consumer messaging apps were never designed to handle sensitive communications, protect confidentiality, or meet the demands of high-security environments,” explained Christine Gadsby, senior security advisor at BlackBerry Secure Communications.
“They trust phone numbers, not verified identities, and encryption protects the channel, not who is on it. That gap is already being exploited, as recent intelligence warnings show, and governments and critical infrastructure organizations are responding by moving toward communications infrastructures they own and trust.”
Ownership and control of the infrastructure behind sensitive communications is emerging as a “critical blind spot,” Blackberry said, emphasizing that it “exposes gaps” in data sovereignty. Still, more than half (55%) of respondents said they prioritize sovereign control.
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