Latest release of the UAE-developed KATIM secure communications application gives UAE businesses and government entities access to defence-grade messaging for chat, voice, and video

Digital14, a UAE-based trusted advisor in digital transformation and cyber resilience, has announced the latest release of KATIM® Messenger, the world’s first ultra-secure chat application, now available to UAE businesses and all government entities. It means that organisations can be confident that their mission critical information and communications are private, confidential, and secure.

KATIM® Messenger is a defence-grade end-to-end encrypted messaging service designed for private and secure enterprise communications, collaboration, and decision-making.

Speaking at the Innovation Arabia conference today, Nilesh Patel, EVP for Secure Solutions at Digital14 said, “We live in a hyper-connected digital world where the impact of the pandemic has accelerated digitisation. At the same time, businesses and governments are subject to constantly evolving security threats, often through mobile communications. This new reality requires a new approach and it’s critical that we prioritise secure communications to protect our most valuable assets: sensitive information and data”.

The new release of KATIM® Messenger significantly advances the KATIM® Secure Platform, which was developed in the UAE with the world’s first ultra secure smartphone launched in 2017. It is built with a zero-trust security posture and an industry’s first multi-layer Secure-By-Design methodology with the signature peer-verified secure communication architecture of KATIM® Secure Platform. Government entities and UAE businesses in various sectors can securely communicate over a close-loop secure circle of trusted users.

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“Companies have to think about their most valuable assets – their data and critical business information –  and how they ‘transport’ something so valuable. In this era of instant communication, organisations worldwide are rapidly adopting messaging applications as the way to ‘transport’ business critical information.  To ensure the security of sensitive information and data, users must trust and verify who they are communicating to on the other side. The data must be protected end-to-end: while it is being processed by the application, while it is in transit and when data is viewed by the recipient,” said Patel.

KATIM® Messenger is ultra secure

Unlike other consumer-grade and commercially available messaging apps, KATIM® Messenger is designed with comprehensive threat modelling and attack vector analysis, so that business communications remain secure across all the use cases. The data remains encrypted throughout its life, so it always remains secure and private. Unlike the consumer-grade apps, user data is never shared with third parties for monetisation. KATIM® Messenger applies multi-layer end-to-end encryption with optional National Cryptography and brings strong PKI-based user identity with customer controlled HSM-based certificates. It is locally developed, deployed, and managed with optional behind-the-firewall-control for secure compliance and auditing capabilities. KATIM® Messenger is built from the ground up to protect mobile communications against sophisticated remote network, identity, and MITM attacks.

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Building a secure business communications ‘ecosystem’ in the UAE

KATIM® Messenger is used by organisations on one device at a time per user for security reasons, within a secure circle of peers that have been registered by administrators and who are also using the KATIM® Messenger app. The licensing of the app is based on the number of users.

“The new release now supports a cross organisation secure federation feature that allows organisations to recognise users from an outside organisation and trusted enough to be added to the closed loop within the KATIM Messenger app. In this way, we are building ‘circles of trusted users’ of secure communications among businesses and government entities which will grow to become a secure business communications ‘ecosystem’ in the UAE,” said Patel.

Self-destruct feature for safe sharing of files and documents

KATIM® Messenger has a self-destruct feature that allows documents and media files to be shared in the app, with a timer set so the documents and files will disappear at the specified time after being viewed by the recipient. The files are not able to be downloaded from the app.

The application is distributed securely and accessible for iPhones only via an organisation’s Apple Business Manager account or through controlled application binary distribution for Android devices. The organisations can choose its deployment method – either through managed KATIM® Messenger-as-a-service from Digital14 or deploy as a self-managed service in their own on-premise infrastructure.

“Your data always belongs to you. It’s stored in the secure cloud in the UAE or on your servers if you opt for an on-premise deployment for your organisation,” said Patel. Organisations can also control the encryption keys of the solution preventing anyone from decrypting their end-to-end communications.

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