It feels as though 2024 was a year that highlighted the need for a new era of communications. To cite just a few examples, Russia intercepted German military discussions about providing Taurus missiles to Ukraine through a security lapse during a WebEx video conference call. A weakness exploited through a lack of interoperability between systems, and reliance on the unencrypted phone network to bridge the gap.

By now you’d assume most government organisations are aware of the risks associated with consumer messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram being used in the workplace. Consumer apps, convenient for personal use, are completely unsuited for official communications. They lack the necessary security, auditability and management controls that public sector organisations require.

We’re incredibly proud to announce the launch of Synapse Pro, a new enterprise Matrix server from Element that delivers phenomenal efficiencies for large-scale Matrix deployments in the public sector. Synapse Pro is Element’s best practice Matrix homeserver for huge public sector deployments.

This week the FBI, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and partner agencies in New Zealand, Australia and Canada began advocating for the use of end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) communications. The move is in reaction to law enforcement backdoors in the public telephone network - including AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile - being hijacked by Salt Typhoon; a cyberattack group believed to be operated by the Chinese government.