Encrypting your IM Conversations

With the presence of numerous powerful packet sniffers and specially designed IM sniffers, the malicious person can always sniff and see your Instant Messaging Conversation over a network. So its important for the IM users to remain secured by encrypting the IM conversations they are making. And in order to provide us the encryption, there are some tools you will find useful for the purpose. Here we will be talking about some of these tools and plugins.

1) SIMP: Simp is a Windows based encryption software that supports many protocols like AIM, MSN, ICQ, YIM, etc. and works with Gaim, Trillian, and the following clients: AIM, ICQ, MSN and YIM. With Simp Lite, free version of the Simp product line, you can secure one of the following services: MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ/AOL Instant Messenger(AIM), Jabber/Google Talk. Also, SimpPro is available for download & for corporate environments and more demanding users, SimpPro encrypts and authenticates messages as well as file transfers (MSN Messenger only), making it the most comprehensive instant messenger security add-on. It uses 1024 to 2048 bit RSA keys.

Download from : http://www.secway.fr/us/products/all.php

2) Gaim-Encryption: An open source plugin to encrypt your IM conversation in the GAIM software, it uses 512 to 4096 bit RSA keys to securely encrypt your IM conversations. Grab this plugin if you use GAIM for your IM. It supports AIM, Jabber, ICQ, YIM, MSN and others too and is available for both Windows as well as Linux systems.

Download from: http://gaim-encryption.sourceforge.net/

3) Pidgin-Encrypt: Another open source plugin mainly targeted for Pidgin IM software, it also uses 512 - 4096 bit RSA keys. It automatically creates a public/private key pair for you upon loading the plugin and automatically transmits your public key to other users. A must have plugin for pidgin.

Download from: http://pidgin-encrypt.sourceforge.net/

4) OTR: "Off the Record": Another IM encryption, available for Pidgin in Linux+Windows and Adium for Mac, its a transparent encryption. A detailed explanation about its protocol can be found at http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/Protocol-v2-3.0.0.html.

Download from: http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/

5) SecureIM: SecureIM is another tool that uses 128-bit Blowfish keys to secure the IM conversation in Trillian IM software in Windows. It has lesser supports i.e. supports only AIM/ICQ protocol.

Download from: http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/

6) X-IM: Its another free instant messaging encryption which uses 256-bit session keys, 160-bit hash functions, and 2048-bit public/private key pairs. It is available for windows and officially it says "X-IM's Encryption Protocols and Algorithms are selected and designed to protect the privacy of your communications well into the foreseeable future and beyond."

Download from: http://x-im.net

Apart from these, SSL can be implemented to securely encrypt your IM conversations, you can use certificates from verisign(paid) and get the enterprise softwares from AOL, Yahoo and MSN which include encryption in their enterprise software.