Saudi Arabia developing a secure alternative to WhatsApp

Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy, is developing its own cross-platform messaging service to compete with the likes of Facebook's WhatsApp and Tencent's WeChat.

A team of Saudi engineers and researchers at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, a government research facility in Riyadh, is working on a local social media platform that is expected to be ready within a year.

This platform is being built on locally-developed encrypted software and algorithms that will protect it from potential security vulnerabilities, Basil Al Omair, founding director of the National Centre for Cybersecurity Technologies at KACST, said in a statement issued to the media.

A homegrown platform will also limit the kingdom’s reliance on foreign companies and ensure that all confidential and sensitive data resides on local servers, while guaranteeing a safe exchange of both text and voice communications, he added.

Data generated through the most popular commercial applications is stored on “external servers and is controlled by foreign agencies and may contain back doors that are difficult to discover,” Mr Al Omair said.

“The advantage of the application that is designed by [a] 100 per cent Saudi workforce is that it guarantees it is free from any back doors … [and] ensures confidentiality,” he added.

Saudi Arabia is steadily increasing its cybersecurity capabilities and is currently among the most secure states in the Arab world.

It was ranked 13th globally out of 175 countries on the global cybersecurity index issued by the UN-backed International Telecommunication Union in 2018. Its cybersecurity budget is growing at a compound annual rate of 15.3 per cent and is expected to have a market value of $5.1 billion (Dh18.7bn) by 2022, according to a report last year by the US-Saudi Business Council.

KACST is looking to initially promote the services among government agencies and institutions, said Mr Al Omair.

It will be compatible with both desktop and mobile operating systems, such as Windows, Android and iOS.

Established in 1977, KACST supports innovation and fosters scientific research to promote industrial development in Saudi Arabia. It implements research and development projects in 15 sectors that contribute to economic growth and sustainability in the kingdom, according to its website.

The danger of cyber attacks has been highlighted by several high-profile incidents in the region.

In March last year, US cybersecurity firm Symantec identified a cyber espionage group, Elfin, that was targeting organisations across a diverse range of sectors in Saudi Arabia. It accounted for 41 per cent of attacks on Saudi Arabia detected since 2016.

The Shamoon virus first appeared in Saudi Arabia in 2012 at Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil-producing company.

In December 2018, Shamoon 3 – a data-wiping piece of malware – hit the oil and gas sector again, said Symantec. It attacked Saipem, an Italian contractor working for Aramco and several other oil majors in the region.