New Delhi, October 21: Encrypted messaging platform Telegram on Saturday said it is the most secure mass market messenger when it comes to protecting IP addresses during calls. The company responded to a cyber-security researcher called Denis Simonov, who showcased it was easy to access the IP address of any account on encrypted messaging app Telegram with a simple tool.

In a statement to IANS, Telegram said it is the only platform that doesn’t use peer-to-peer for all calls by default. “Only those on a user's contact list (trusted parties) are able to see their IP address when making a call. Calls with strangers are routed through Telegram's servers specifically for the purpose of masking IP addresses,” the company said. Telegram Update: Instant Messaging Platform Rolls Out New Story Feature for Premium Users.

Telegram said it also gives users an option to disable peer-to-peer calls for contacts completely, routing all calls through the servers. “This doesn’t constitute a ‘leak’ since IP addresses are shared by technical necessity to facilitate peer-to-peer calls,” the company mentioned.

According to Telegram, in other messaging platforms, all the calls use peer-to-peer networking by default and share IP addresses without giving any option to their users to change this. Simonov wrote in a post that recently, he was faced with the task of determining the IP address of his interlocutor in the Telegram messenger. Telegram Still Leaks IP Addresses To Your Contacts, Says Denis Simonov Cyber-Security Researcher.

“For this purpose, I used the network traffic analysis tool Wireshark, where I detected STUN protocol traffic,” he mentioned. STUN (Session Traversal Utilities for NAT) is a standardised protocol designed to help devices behind NAT (Network Address Translation) determine their external IP address and the type of NAT that is used on their gateway.

“After spending a little time, I decided to automate the process of obtaining the IP of my counterpart in Telegram using the console version of Wireshark - tshark,” the researcher added.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 21, 2023 04:23 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).