Cryptography Whitepaper

Threema uses modern cryptography based on open source components

that strike an optimal balance between security, performance and message
size. In this whitepaper, the algorithms and design decisions behind the
cryptography in Threema are explained.

VERSION: JUNE 21, 2021

Contents

Overview 4

Open Source 5

End-to-End Encryption 5
Key Generation and Registration 5
Key Distribution and Trust 6
Message Encryption 7
Group Messaging 8
Key Backup 8

Client-Server Protocol Description 10

Chat Protocol (Message Transport Layer) 10
Directory Access Protocol 11
Media Access Protocol 11

Cryptography Details 12
Key Lengths 12
Random Number Generation 13
Forward Secrecy 14
Padding 14
Repudiability 15
Replay Prevention 15

Local Data Encryption 15

iOS 15
Android 16

Key Storage 16
iOS 16
Android 16

Push Notifications 17
iOS 17
Android 17

Threema • Cryptography Whitepaper

Address Book Synchronization 17
Linking 18

ID Revocation 19
An Example 19

Profile Pictures 19

Web Client 20
Architecture 20
Connection Buildup 21
WebRTC Signaling 22
WebRTC Connection Buildup 22
Trusted Keys / Stored Sessions 23
Push Service 23
Self Hosting 24
Links 24

Threema Calls 24
Signaling 24
Call Encryption 24
Audio Encoding 25
Video Encoding 25
Privacy / IP Exposure 25

Threema Safe 26
Overview 26
Backup Format 27
Encryption 27
Upload/Storage 27
Backup Intervals 28
Restore/Decryption 28
Running a Custom Threema Safe Server 28

Threema • Cryptography Whitepaper

Overview
Threema uses two different encryption layers to protect messages between the sender and
the recipient.
• End-to-end encryption layer: this layer is between the sender and the recipient.
• Transport layer: each end-to-end encrypted message is encrypted again for transport
between the client and the server, in order to protect the header information.

These layers and other important aspects of the cryptography in Threema are described in
detail in the following chapters. The crucial part is that the end-to-end encryption layer passes
through the server uninterrupted; the server cannot remove the inner encryption layer.

End-to-End
Encryption Layer

Sender Server Recipient

Transport Layer Transport Layer

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Open Source
The Threema apps for iOS and Android as well as all components of the web client are
published under open source licenses:
• iOS app: https://github.com/threema-ch/threema-ios
• Android app: https://github.com/threema-ch/threema-android
• Web client: https://github.com/threema-ch/threema-web
• SaltyRTC server: https://github.com/saltyrtc/saltyrtc-server-python
• Push relay: https://github.com/threema-ch/push-relay

End-to-End Encryption
In Threema, all messages (whether they are simple text messages, or contain media like
images, videos or audio recordings) are end-to-end encrypted. For this purpose, each
Threema user has a unique asymmetric key pair consisting of a public and a private key
based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography. These two keys are mathematically related, but it is not
technically feasible to calculate the private key given only the public key.

Key Generation and Registration

When a Threema user sets up the app for the first time, the following process is performed:
1. The app generates a new key pair by choosing a private key at random1, storing it securely
on the device, and calculating the corresponding public key over the Elliptic Curve
(Curve25519).
2. The app sends the public key to the server.
3. The server stores the public key and assigns a new random Threema ID, consisting of 8
characters out of A-Z/0-9.
4. The app stores the received Threema ID along with the public and private key in secure
storage on the device.

1 including entropy generated by user interaction; see section “Random Number Generation” for details

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Key Distribution and Trust

The public key of each user is stored on the directory server, along with its permanently
assigned Threema ID. Any user may obtain the public key for a given Threema ID by querying
the directory server. The following input values can be used for this query:
• a full 8-character Threema ID
• a hash of a E.164 mobile phone number that is linked with a Threema ID (see section
“Address Book Synchronization” for details on the hashing)
• a hash of an email address that is linked with a Threema ID

The Threema app maintains a “verification level” indicator for each contact that it has stored.
The following levels are possible:

Red (level 1): The public key has been obtained from the server because a message
has been received from this contact for the first time, or the ID has been entered manually. No
matching contact was found in the user’s address book (by phone number or email), and
therefore the user cannot be sure that the person is who they claim to be in their messages.

Orange (level 2): The ID has been matched with a contact in the user’s address book
(by phone number or email). Since the server verifies phone numbers and email addresses, the
user can be reasonably sure that the person is who they claim to be.

Green (level 3): The user has personally verified the ID and public key of the contact
by scanning their QR code. Assuming the contact’s device has not been hijacked, the user can
be very sure that messages from this contact were really written by the person that they
indicate.

In the Threema Work app, the following levels are possible in addition to the ones mentioned
above:

Blue (level 2): The ID is a Threema Work internal contact that has not been
personally verified by scanning the QR code.

Blue (level 3): The ID is a Threema Work internal contact that has been personally
verified by scanning the QR code.

To upgrade a contact from the red or orange to the green level, the user must scan that
contact’s public QR code. This QR code is displayed in the “My ID” section of the app, and
uses the following format:
3mid:<identity>,<publicKeyHex>
where <identity> is the 8-character Threema ID, and <publicKeyHex> is the
hexadecimal (lowercase) representation of the user’s 32 byte public key. The app verifies that

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the scanned public key matches the one that was returned by the directory server.

Key Fingerprints
The app displays a key fingerprint for each contact, and for the user’s own identity. This can be
used to compare public keys manually. A key fingerprint is created by hashing the raw public
key with SHA-256, and taking the first 16 bytes of the resulting hash as the fingerprint.

Message Encryption

Threema uses the “Box” model of the NaCl Networking and Cryptography Library to encrypt
and authenticate messages. For the purpose of this description, assume that Alice wants to
send a message to Bob. Encryption of the message using NaCl works as follows:

Preconditions
1. Alice and Bob have each generated a key pair consisting of a public and a
private key.
2. Alice has obtained the public key from Bob over an authenticated channel.

Procedure to Encrypt a Message

1. Alice uses Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) over the curve Curve25519 and hashes
the result with HSalsa20 to derive a shared secret from her own private key and Bob’s
public key.
Note that due to the properties of the elliptic curve, this shared secret is the same if the
keys are swapped (i.e. if Bob’s private key and Alice’s public key are used instead).
2. Alice generates a random nonce.
3. Alice uses the XSalsa20 stream cipher with the shared secret as the key and the random
nonce to encrypt the plaintext.
4. Alice uses Poly1305 to compute a Message Authentication Code (MAC), and prepends it
to the ciphertext. A portion of the key stream from XSalsa20 is used to form the MAC key.
5. Alice sends the MAC, ciphertext and nonce to Bob.

By reversing the above steps and using his own private key and Alice’s public key, Bob can
decrypt the message and verify its authenticity.

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Bob’s
public key
ECDH
HSalsa20 Shared secret
(Curve25519)
Alice’s
private key

Random
Nonce
generator

Plaintext XSalsa20 Poly1305

MAC

Ciphertext

Nonce

For further details, see Cryptography in NaCl.

Group Messaging

In Threema, groups are managed without any involvement of the servers. That is, the servers
do not know which groups exist and which users are members of which groups. When a user
sends a message to a group, it is individually encrypted and sent to each other group member.
This may appear wasteful, but given typical message sizes of 100-300 bytes, the extra traffic
is insignificant. Media files (images, video, audio) are encrypted with a random symmetric key
and uploaded only once. The same key, along with a reference to the uploaded file, is then
distributed to all members of the group.

Key Backup

The user can back up their private key so that they are able to move their Threema ID to
another device, or to restore it in case of loss/damage to the device. The app automatically
reminds the user to do so, as without a backup, there is no way to recover a lost private key.
To generate a backup, the user must first choose a password (min. 8 characters).

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The backup data is then generated as follows:
1. Calculate the SHA-256 hash of the following binary string: <identity><private
key>
where <identity> is the 8 character Threema ID, and <private key> is the 32 byte
private key.
Keep only the first two bytes of the resulting hash. It is used during restoration to verify
with reasonable confidence that the provided password was correct.
2. Choose a random 64 bit salt.
3. Derive a 256-bit encryption key from the given password and the random salt using
PBKDF2 with HMAC-SHA256 and 100000 iterations:
keyenc = PBKDF2(HMAC-SHA256, password, salt, 100000, 32)
4. Use the XSalsa20 stream cipher with keyenc and an all-zero nonce to encrypt a binary
string of the following format:
<identity><private key><hash>
where <hash> is the two byte truncated hash calculated in step 1. Note that this can be
done using the crypto_stream function of NaCl.
5. Prepend the salt to the encrypted string.
6. Base32 encode the result.
7. Split the Base32 encoded string into groups of four characters and separate the groups
with dashes. The result will look like this:
XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-
XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

The encrypted backup data consists of 80 characters (A-Z, 2-7). It is also displayed in QR
code form so that the user can more easily transfer it to another device.

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Client-Server Protocol Description
Threema communicates with three different types of servers. To access the directory and
to download/upload encrypted media files, HTTPS is used. To transport the actual chat
messages, a custom protocol built on TCP is used.

Custom Chat Server

HTTPS Directory Server

HTTPS Media Server

Chat Protocol (Message Transport Layer)

The chat protocol is used to transport incoming and outgoing messages between the client
(app) and the Threema servers. It is a custom binary protocol that uses the NaCl library to
secure the connection on the application layer. Its properties are:

Provides Forward Secrecy

• New temporary keys are generated whenever the app restarts
• Temporary private keys are never stored in permanent storage, but are only kept in volatile
memory

Optimized for minimal overhead

• Small message headers
• Minimum number of round-trips required for connection setup

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User is authenticated using his public key during connection setup
• Ensures that a user can only log in if he is in possession of the private key for the
Threema ID

Directory Access Protocol

The directory access protocol is used for the following purposes:

• Creating new Threema IDs
• Fetching the public key of another user
• Linking email addresses and mobile phone numbers
• Matching address book contacts (hashes of phone numbers and email addresses) to
Threema IDs

Requests are authenticated with a challenge/response protocol based on the user’s Threema
ID and key pair.

HTTPS (HTTP with TLS) is used as the transport protocol. Strong TLS cipher suites with
forward secrecy (ECDHE/DHE) and TLS v1.2 are supported. In order to preclude man-in-the-
middle (MITM) attacks even if the system’s trusted CA store has been tampered with, or if a
trusted CA has illegally issued a certificate for a Threema domain name, the app uses public-
key pinning with hardcoded pins to only accept specific, Threema-owned server certificates.

Media Access Protocol

The media servers are used for temporary storage of large media data (e.g. images, videos,
audio recordings). Such media is not sent directly via the chat protocol. Instead, the following
procedure is used:
1. The sender encrypts the media file with a random 256-bit symmetric key using XSalsa20
and adds a Poly1305 authenticator.
2. The sender uploads the encrypted media file to a media server via HTTPS.
3. The media server assigns a unique ID for this upload and returns it to the sender.
4. The sender sends an end-to-end encrypted message to the recipient, which contains the
media ID and the symmetric key.
5. The recipient receives and decrypts the end-to-end encrypted message, obtaining the
media ID and the symmetric key.
6. The recipient uses the media ID to download the encrypted media file from the media
server.
7. The recipient decrypts the media file using the symmetric key.

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8. The recipient signals the media server to delete the file, unless it was sent in a group
conversation, in which case it remains on the media server for the maximum message
lifetime (14 days), after which it is deleted automatically in any case.

The media servers use the same TLS configuration (cipher suites with forward secrecy, TLS
v1.2) as the directory servers, and the app uses public-key pinning when accessing them.

Cryptography Details
As mentioned earlier, Threema uses the NaCl Networking and Cryptography Library for both
the end-to-end encryption, and to secure the chat protocol at the transport level. This library
uses a collection of algorithms to provide a simplified interface for protecting a message using
what the authors call “public-key authenticated encryption” against eavesdropping, spoofing
and tampering. By default, and as implemented in Threema, it uses the following algorithms:
• Key derivation: Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) over the curve Curve25519
• Symmetric encryption: XSalsa20
• Authentication and integrity protection: Poly1305-AES

It is worth mentioning that the ECC curve used by NaCl (and thus by Threema) is not one
of the NIST-recommended curves that have been suspected of containing deliberately
selected weakening constants in their specification. For more details, see Cryptography in
NaCl.

The following implementations of the cryptographic algorithms are used:

Curve25519 XSalsa20 Poly1305

iOS Donna C implementation Reference C implementation “53” C implementation

Android Reference C implementation (native code, fallback to jnacl)

Key Lengths

The asymmetric keys used in Threema have a length of 256 bits, and their effective ECC
strength is 255 bits.

The shared secrets, which are used as symmetric keys for end-to-end message encryption
(derived from the sender’s private key and the recipient’s public key using ECDH, and
combined with a 192 bit nonce), have a length of 256 bits.

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The random symmetric keys used for media encryption are also 256 bits long.

The message authentication code (MAC) that is added to each message to detect tampering
and forgery has a length of 128 bits.

Discussion of Reasonable Key Lengths

According to NIST Special Publication 800-57 (page 53), the security level of ECC based
encryption at 255 bits can be compared to RSA at roughly 2048 to 3072 bits, or a symmetric
security level of ~128 bits. The possibility of a successful brute force attack on a key with a
128 bit security level is considered extremely unlikely using current technology and knowledge,
according to the judgment of reputable security researchers. A revolutionary breakthrough
in mathematics or quantum computing would most possibly render keys breakable anyway,
whether they are 128 or 256 bits in length.
• http://cr.yp.to/talks/2005.09.19/slides.pdf
(Daniel J. Bernstein, author of Curve25519)

• https://www.imperialviolet.org/2014/05/25/strengthmatching.html
(Adam Langley, Google security researcher)

Random Number Generation

Threema uses random numbers for the following purposes, listed by descending order of
randomness quality required:
• Private key generation
• Symmetric encryption of media files
• Nonces
• Backup encryption salt
• Padding amount determination

Nonces and salts must never repeat, but they are not required to be hard to guess.

To obtain random numbers, Threema uses the system-provided random number generator
(RNG) intended for cryptographically-secure purposes provided by the device’s operating
system. The exact implementation varies among operating systems:

Note that Threema does not use the flawed Dual_EC_DRBG random number generator.

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Facility Implementation

iOS /dev/random Fortuna

Android /dev/random 1 Linux PRNG

User Generated Entropy for Private Key Generation

Due to the requirement for very high quality randomness when generating the long-term
private key, the user is prompted to generate additional entropy by moving a finger on the
screen. The movements (consisting of coordinate values and high-resolution timestamps) are
continuously collected and hashed for several seconds. The resulting entropy is then mixed
(XOR) with entropy obtained from the system’s RNG.

Forward Secrecy

Due to the inherently asynchronous nature of mobile messengers, providing reliable Forward
Secrecy on the end-to-end layer is difficult. Key negotiation for a new chat session would
require the other party to be online before the first message can be sent. Experimental
schemes like caching pre-generated temporary keys from the clients on the servers increase
the server and protocol complexity, leading to lower reliability and more potential for mistakes
that impact security. The user experience can also be diminished by events that are not under
the control of the sender, for example when the recipient loses their phone’s data, and along
with it the ephemeral keys. Due to these and the following considerations, Threema has
implemented Forward Secrecy on the transport layer only:
• Reliability is very important to ensure that users do not feel negatively impacted by the
cryptography.
• The risk of eavesdropping on any path through the Internet between the sender and the
server, or between the server and the recipient, is orders of magnitude greater than the risk
of eavesdropping on the server itself.

With Threema’s implementation, an attacker who has captured and stored the network traffic
between a client and a Threema server will not be able to decrypt it even if he learns the
private key of the server or the client afterwards.

Padding

In order to thwart attempts to guess the content of short messages by looking at the amount
of data, Threema adds a random amount of PKCS#7 padding to each message before end-to-
end encryption.

1 To avoid the flawed SecureRandom implementation in some Android versions, Threema uses its own implementation
that directly accesses /dev/random (which is not affected by the SecureRandom implementation bug).

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Repudiability

In general, cryptographically signed messages also provide non-repudiation; i.e. the sender
cannot deny having sent the message after it has been received. The NaCl library’s box
model uses so-called public-key authenticators instead, which guarantee repudiability (see
http://nacl.cr.yp.to/box.html, “Security model”). Any recipient can forge a message that will
look just like it was actually generated by the purported sender, so the recipient cannot
convince a third party that the message was really generated by the sender and not forged
by the recipient. However, the recipient is still protected against forgeries by third parties.
The reason is that in order to perform such a forgery, the private key of the recipient is needed.
Since the recipient himself will know whether or not he has used his own private key for such
a forgery, he can be sure that no third party could have forged the message.

Replay Prevention

The Threema app remembers the nonce of every message that has been sent in the past,
and rejects messages with duplicate nonces. Since the server cannot successfully modify
the nonce of a message without knowing the private key of one of the parties involved in
the communication, this prevents a malicious server from replaying/duplicating previously
sent messages.

Local Data Encryption

The Threema app stores local data (such as the history of incoming and outgoing messages,
and the contact list) in encrypted form on the device. The way in which this data is encrypted
varies among platforms.

iOS

On iOS, Threema stores local data in a Core Data database, which is backed by files in the
app’s private data directory. The iOS sandbox model ensures that no other apps can access
this data directory. All files stored by Threema are protected using the iOS Data Protection
feature using the Data Protection class NSFileProtectionCompleteUntilFirstUser
Authentication. The encryption key used to protect the files is derived from the device’s
UID key and the user’s passcode. A longer passcode will provide better security (on devices
equipped with a Touch/Face ID sensor, longer passcodes can be used without a loss of
comfort as the passcode only needs to be entered after a reboot).

Note that the private key for the Threema ID is stored separately in the iOS Keychain.

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Android

On Android, Threema stores local data in an SQLite database within the app’s private data
directory. Android ensures that no other apps can access this data directory (as long as the
device is not rooted). The database itself is protected by SQLCipher with AES-256, and any
media files (which are stored separately in the app’s private directory within the file system)
are also encrypted using AES. The key is randomly generated when the database is first
created, and can be protected with a user-supplied passphrase (which is of course necessary
if the user wishes to take advantage of this encryption). The passphrase is never written to
permanent storage and therefore needs to be entered whenever the app process restarts (e.g.
after a low-memory situation, or after the device has rebooted). Alternatively, the user may
enable full-device encryption if supported by the device and Android version.

Key Storage
On the user’s mobile device, the private key is stored in such a way as to prevent access by
other apps on the same device, or by unauthorized users. The procedure differs between
platforms.

iOS

• The private key is stored in the iOS Keychain with the attribute
kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlockThisDeviceOnly.
• Only the Threema app can access this keychain entry.
• While the entire iOS keychain is included in backups via iTunes or iCloud, the
kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlockThisDeviceOnly attribute causes the keychain entry of
Threema to be encrypted with a device-specific key (“UID key”) that cannot be read directly
and is not known to Apple. Therefore, the keychain entry is only usable if the iTunes/iCloud
backup is restored to the same device.
• When the Threema app is deleted and reinstalled, the keychain entry persists and the
Threema ID is not lost.

Android

• The private key is stored in a file in the app’s private data directory.
• Other apps cannot access this file.
• AES-256-CBC encryption is applied to the private key before it’s written to the file. The
key for this encryption is stored separately and can be protected using a passphrase
(see section “Local Data Encryption” for details).

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Push Notifications
Threema uses the standard push notification service provided by the operating system. This is
necessary to ensure reliable delivery of push notifications, as mobile operating systems place
high importance on conserving battery power, and thus severely restrict background operation
of apps (such as would be needed to maintain a separate, app-specific persistent connection
for push notifications). Channelizing push notifications through the operating system’s
standard mechanism thus helps conserve battery power, and on iOS, it is the only means
possible and accepted in the App Store.

iOS

The Threema-specific APNS payload consists of a JSON/Base64 encoded NaCl “crypto_

secretbox” ciphertext and corresponding nonce. The symmetric key used by the Threema chat
server to encrypt this payload is chosen at random by the client, and securely transmitted
to the server beforehand using the chat protocol described above. The symmetric key is
not known to Apple. When a push notification arrives, the Threema app decrypts the APNS
payload using the symmetric key, and thus recovers the Threema ID and nickname of the
sender of the corresponding message, as well as the message ID. With this information, the
app can obtain the actual encrypted message by connecting to the chat server, and then
decrypt the message and display a preview (if enabled) and the sender’s contact name in the
local notification.

Android

The GCM payload is empty; that is, the GCM message only serves to wake up the Threema
app in the background. It then connects to the chat server to retrieve any pending messages,
decrypts them, and shows local notifications for them.

Address Book Synchronization

Threema optionally lets the user discover other Threema contacts by synchronizing with the
phone’s address book. If the user chooses to do so, the following information is uploaded
through a TLS connection to the directory server:
• HMAC-SHA256 hash of each email address found in the phone’s address book
Key: 0x30a5500fed9701fa6defdb610841900febb8e430881f7a
d816826264ec09bad7

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• HMAC-SHA256 hash of the E.164 normalized form of each phone number found in the
phone’s address book
Key: 0x85adf8226953f3d96cfd5d09bf29555eb955fcd8aa5ec4f9f
cd869e258370723

The directory server then compares the list of hashes from the user with the known email/
phone hashes of Threema IDs that have been linked with an email address and/or phone
number. Any matches are returned by the server as a tuple (Threema ID, hash). Only those
hashes that have already been submitted by the user are returned (i.e. if the user submits an
email hash which then matches a Threema ID, the server will only return the email hash of that
ID and not the linked phone number’s hash, even if one exists). After returning the matches to
the client, the directory server discards the submitted hashes.

Use of HMAC Keys

The reason why HMAC-SHA256 is used instead of plain SHA256 is not for obfuscation,
but as a best practice to ensure that hashes generated by Threema are unique and do not
match those of any other application. Obviously the keys need to be the same for all users, as
random salting (such as is used when hashing passwords for storage) cannot be used here
because the hashes of all users must agree so that matching contacts can be found.

A Word About Hashing Phone Numbers

Due to the relatively low number of possible phone number combinations, it is theoretically
possible to crack hashes of phone numbers by trying all possibilities. This is due to the nature
of hashes and phone numbers and cannot be solved differently (using salts like for hashing
passwords does not work for this kind of data matching). Therefore, the servers treat phone
number hashes with the same care as if they were raw/unhashed phone numbers. Specifically,
they never store hashes uploaded during synchronization in persistent storage, but instead
discard them as soon as the list of matching IDs has been returned to the client.

Linking

If a user chooses to link their Threema ID to an email address or a phone number, the directory
server verifies that the user actually owns the email address or phone number in question.
• For email addresses, a verification email with a hyperlink is sent to the user. The user must
open the hyperlink and confirm in the browser before the ID link is established.
• For phone numbers, the directory server sends an SMS message with a random 6 digit
code. The user must enter that code in the app, which sends it back to the server to verify
the phone number.
• If the user cannot receive the SMS message, he/she may choose to receive an automated
phone call in which the code is read out.

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ID Revocation
Threema users may revoke their ID at any time by going to a website (https://myid.threema.
ch/revoke) and entering their Threema ID and a revocation password that they have set
beforehand. Revoked IDs can no longer log in, and they will be shown in strikethrough text on
(or, depending on the users’ settings, disappear from) the contact lists of other users within 24
hours. Messages cannot be sent to revoked IDs.

Revocation passwords are hashed with SHA256 on the client side, but only the first four
bytes are sent to and stored/compared on the directory server. This mitigates the possibility
of brute-force hash cracking on the server side to recover the user’s password. Obviously, the
downside is that the stored key has significantly less entropy than a reasonable user password
and a large number of possible passwords correspond to each key. However, the server can
easily limit the number of key revocation attempts over a period of time.

An Example

A user has set an eight character revocation password with a combination of characters
consisting of the lowercase latin alphabet (a-z) and digits. This results in 368 ≅ 241.36
combinations.

Therefore, a given key can correspond with over 600 different passwords of this length and
character set. On the other hand, the probability of randomly choosing the correct hash value
without knowing anything about the password is 2-32 ≅ 0.000000023%. Assuming that a user
gets three attempts per day, the probability of finding the correct hash value within 10 years is
≅ 0.000255%.

Profile Pictures
It is possible for a user to select a photo to be used as his/her “profile picture”. The user can
choose within the app whether he/she wants to share the profile picture with all their contacts,
with only those contacts selected from a list, or with nobody. If he/she chose to share the
profile picture and sends a message to one of the designated recipients, the newly set profile
picture is encrypted with a random symmetric key within the app, and then uploaded to
the media server like a regular image message. A reference to the encrypted picture on the
media server, along with the symmetric key, is subsequently sent as an end-to-end encrypted
message in the background whenever the user sends a regular message to one of the
designated contacts who has not received the current profile picture yet. As the media server
deletes files after two weeks, the profile picture is uploaded again once a week (if necessary),
using a new symmetric key each time.

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Web Client
The Threema web client communicates directly with the Threema app over WebRTC data
channels (Android) and WebSockets (iOS). In addition to the standard WebRTC channel
encryption (Android) and WebSocket TLS transport encryption (iOS), all packets are end-
to-end encrypted using NaCl. The WebRTC signaling is also implemented with end-to-end
encryption using the SaltyRTC protocol.

The following paragraphs explain the general architecture of the Threema web client
implementation as well as some aspects of the signaling protocol. If you want to learn more
about the WebRTC signaling protocol, please refer to the main specification as well as the
WebRTC task specification.

Architecture

1
SaltyRTC Server Handshake
(WebSocket, over TLS)

2
SaltyRTC Client Handshake
and Signaling (E2E
Signaling Server Encrypted)

2
3
WebRTC Data Channel
1a 1b (Android only): E2E
Encrypted with SaltyRTC)

Note: On iOS devices, data is not

transferred through a WebRTC data
3 channel, but instead through the end-
to-end encrypted signaling channel,
Web Client App
using the signaling server as relay.

The web client and the app form a client-server relationship. All data about new events and
old conversations is exchanged directly between the two through an end-to-end encrypted
channel.

When the web client is started, it requests the initial data (conversations, contacts, avatars,
etc.) from the app. The app responds with the requested data.

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To send a message to a contact, the web client dispatches a message request to the app,
which will then send the message to the recipient. When a new message arrives, the app
notifies the web client. No messages are exchanged directly between the web client and the
Threema chat server. The user’s private key never leaves the device.

Connection Buildup

The full connection buildup happens in three stages.

1. SaltyRTC Server Handshake

First, the web client generates a new permanent key-pair and a random authentication
token. It then connects to the SaltyRTC signaling server as initiator. The hex-encoded public
permanent key is used as the WebSocket path.

The public permanent key of the web client as well as the authentication token and the
protocol version are transferred to the app through a QR code. The app first generates its own
permanent key-pair and then connects to the same WebSocket path as responder.

Both peers conduct the server handshake according to the SaltyRTC protocol.

2. SaltyRTC Client Handshake and Signaling

As soon as both peers have successfully finished the server handshake, they can start
exchanging client handshake messages. Because the server has established a trusted
connection with both the initiator and the responder, it can relay encrypted messages without
knowing the content. This is how the session keys and the signaling data are transferred.

The two peers each generate a random session key-pair independent of the permanent key-
pair. The public session keys are exchanged. Additionally, the peers exchange information on
how they intend to communicate after the client handshake (the so-called SaltyRTC Task):
• Android devices request to communicate over WebRTC data channels
• iOS devices request to communicate over the signaling channel

The transfer of data between browser and app differs between Android and iOS, due to
platform constraints:

2.1 Android
After the client handshake is successful and both peers know each other’s public session key,
they initiate a WebRTC PeerConnection. The necessary signaling information to build up the
connection (like offer, answer and ICE candidate messages) are exchanged via the WebSocket
connection, encrypted with the session keys.

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As soon as the WebRTC PeerConnection is established, the two peers initiate the handover
of the signaling channel. Future signaling messages (like additional ICE candidates when the
network configuration changes) are exchanged over a secure signaling data channel. Once the
handover is complete, the WebSocket connection to the server is closed.

The two peers now open a second WebRTC data channel in order to exchange application
data. All packets transferred through that data channel are encrypted using the session keys.

2.2 iOS
After the client handshake is successful and both peers know each other’s public session
key, they can immediately start exchanging application data over the established WebSocket
signaling connection. All packets transferred through that channel are encrypted using the
session keys.

3. Data Channel (Android Only)

All required web client data (conversations, contacts, messages, etc.) can now be freely
exchanged through the encrypted WebRTC data channel.

WebRTC Signaling

The direct communication channel between the app and the Android web client is established
using a WebRTC PeerConnection. In order to establish such a peer-to-peer connection,
a signaling channel is inevitable. Common signaling server implementations often use
WebSockets without any end-to-end encryption (often even without transport encryption),
meaning that the server can read all (potentially sensitive) network information of the peers
connecting. There is also the risk of a server manipulating the data being transmitted, opening
up possibilities of MITM attacks.

In order to mitigate this risk as well as minimizing metadata exposure in general, we

participated in the design and implementation of the SaltyRTC protocol, which offers end-to-
end encryption of signaling data and does not require the clients to trust the server at all.

WebRTC Connection Buildup

Because networks in the real world don’t always make it possible to establish a direct
connection between two peers due to obstacles like firewalls, NATs, CGNs and the like,
WebRTC connection buildup may have to resort to mechanisms like STUN and TURN. STUN
(Session Traversal Utilities for NAT) is a protocol that allows to find each other’s public IP
despite the existence of NATs. TURN (Traversal Using Relays around NAT) is a protocol that
provides relaying of data packets in case the connection buildup using STUN alone fails.
Note, however, that even though a TURN server relays packets between two peers, it cannot
know anything about the content of these packets as they are both end-to-end encrypted by
WebRTC using DTLS and end-to-end encrypted by SaltyRTC.

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Threema runs its own STUN and TURN servers.

Trusted Keys / Stored Sessions

In order to prevent having to scan the QR code each time a connection needs to be
established, the public permanent key of the peer can optionally be stored as a trusted key.

To be able to securely store this information in the browser, users must provide a password
if they want to be able to restore the session at a later point in time. The public permanent
key of the app as well as the private permanent key of the web client are then encrypted with
the provided user password using authenticated NaCl secret key encryption (XSalsa20 +
Poly1305) and stored in local browser storage.

On the app side, the public permanent key of the web client and the private permanent key of
the app are stored in the encrypted app database.

When reconnecting to an existing session, instead of creating a new permanent key-pair, the
peers restore the trusted key-pair before initiating the server and client handshake. Note,
however, that new session keys are still created, thus offering perfect forward secrecy on a
session level.

Push Service

On Android devices, if Google Play Services are installed on the device of the user, the FCM
push token (an opaque string provided by Google) is transferred to the web client together
with the initial data.

On iOS devices, the APNs push token (an opaque string provided by Apple) is transferred to
the web client together with the initial data.

If the user requests to persist a session, the token is then stored in the local browser storage
together with the trusted keys, encrypted with a key derived from the user-provided password.

When reconnecting a web client session (e.g. when the user requests to restore a previous
session, or when automatically reconnecting due to connection loss) and if a push token is
available, the browser sends this token via HTTPS to a push relay server provided by Threema,
together with the SHA256 hash of the public permanent key of the initiator. The push relay
server then sends the hash to the app as a FCM/APNs push notification. When the app
receives such a notification, it first checks whether the web client is enabled. If it is enabled
and if a web client session with the specified public key exists, that session is started and
connects to the SaltyRTC server for the handshake and reconnection procedure.

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Self Hosting

All components of the web client (except the code in the Threema app itself) are published
under open source licenses (see the beginning of this document for repository links).

The URL and public permanent key of the SaltyRTC server to be used are transferred through
the QR code and stored together with the session information. This allows the user to entirely
bypass the web server and SaltyRTC server operated by Threema, if desired. Instructions
on how to set up a self-hosted Threema Web instance can be found in the Threema Web
repository.

The push relay cannot practically be run by an end user, since the FCM API key and the APNs
certificates are not public, but the source code is provided on GitHub for review purposes.

Links

1. https://webrtc.org/
2. https://saltyrtc.org/
3. https://github.com/saltyrtc/saltyrtc-meta/blob/master/Protocol.md
4. https://github.com/saltyrtc/saltyrtc-meta/blob/master/Task-WebRTC.md
5. https://github.com/saltyrtc/saltyrtc-meta/blob/master/Task-RelayedData.md
6. https://github.com/threema-ch/threema-web/blob/master/docs/self_hosting.md

Threema Calls
Threema Calls are based on WebRTC, an open IETF standard. WebRTC uses the ICE, STUN
and TURN protocols to establish a secure peer-to-peer connection.

Signaling

Signaling data is sent through Threema messages, thus providing the same end-to-end
security and trust level as a regular Threema conversation. If you have verified your contact,
you can also trust your phone calls with that contact.

Call Encryption

The audio stream is encrypted with the SRTP protocol, with DTLS-SRTP being used for
the key exchange. The certificates used for the DTLS session are cryptographically linked
to the keys used for Threema’s end-to-end encryption by means of including the certificate
fingerprints in signaling messages. DTLS version 1.2 is enforced.

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The DTLS ciphersuites offered by the Threema app are (in that order):
• TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256 (0xcca9)
• TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (0xc02c)
• TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 (0xc02b)

The SRTP ciphersuites offered by the Threema app are (in that order):
• SRTP_AEAD_AES_256_GCM (0x0008)
• SRTP_AEAD_AES_128_GCM (0x0007)
• SRTP_AES128_CM_HMAC_SHA1_80 (0x0001)

RTP header extensions are only used if offered in an encrypted form.

Audio Encoding

Audio data is encoded using the state-of-the-art Opus codec at 48 kHz. To avoid potential
privacy and security issues associated with variable bitrate audio codecs1, Threema Calls
always enforce constant bitrate to encode the audio stream.

Video Encoding

Video data is encoded by VP9, VP8 or H.264.

Privacy / IP Exposure

WebRTC connections can be established in two ways: Either a direct connection between the
two devices is used (using STUN to help with NAT traversal), or one or both sides use a TURN
server to relay the encrypted packets.

Relaying has the advantage of hiding the public IP address from the call partner, thus
providing added privacy when the peer is not trusted. On the other hand it exposes some
metadata towards the TURN server, and the connection quality (especially latency) may
be worse than in a direct call. By default, Threema enforces relaying through TURN for all
unverified contacts (with a single red dot as verification status). Optionally, users can enforce
relaying for all calls through the “Always relay calls” option in the “Privacy” settings.

1 Schneier on Security: Eavesdropping on Encrypted Compressed Voice

(https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/eavesdropping_o_2.html)

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Threema Safe
Overview

Threema Safe is an encrypted server-based backup solution that encompasses the following
user-specific data:
• Threema ID
• Private key
• Profile information
• Nickname
• Profile photo
• Linked email address and phone number
• Contact list
• Contact Threema ID
• Public key
• Name
• Verification level
• Group definitions
• Group ID
• Creator
• Group name
• List of members
• Distribution lists
• Name
• List of members
• App settings

Messages and media data are not part of a Threema Safe backup.
The rationale behind Threema Safe is to give users a secure backup option that allows them
to restore their Threema ID and important related data, or to move it to another device, using
nothing but the knowledge of their Threema ID and the Threema Safe password that they
have chosen.

The use of Threema Safe is optional; the user can choose to enable or disable it at any time.
By default, encrypted backups are stored on Threema servers, but the user can use their own
server as a backup store instead. A Threema Safe backup server cannot tell which backup
belongs to which Threema user by looking at the uploaded data.

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Backup Format

The Threema app compiles the information mentioned in the previous section as a JSON
document (binary values like the private key or profile photo are encoded in Base64). This
JSON document is then compressed with gzip and encrypted as follows. The resulting
encrypted backup typically has a size of only a few dozen kilobytes (depending mostly on the
profile photo size, number of contacts and groups).

Encryption

In order to set up Threema Safe, the user must choose a password consisting of at least 8
characters. The app checks whether the password is on a list of the most frequently used
passwords, and warns the user if that is the caseFrom the password and the Threema ID of
the user, a Threema Safe Master Key is derived as follows:
• threemaSafeMasterKey = scrypt(P = Password, S = Threema ID, N =
65536, r = 8, p = 1, dkLen = 64)

The scrypt parameters have been chosen to provide a reasonable trade-off between
calculation time, memory usage and security without precluding the use on older/lower-end
devices.

The scrypt output is then split into two parts of 32 bytes each as follows:
• threemaSafeBackupId = threemaSafeMasterKey[0..31]
• threemaSafeEncryptionKey = threemaSafeMasterKey[32..63]

The Threema Safe backup data in the form of a UTF-8 encoded JSON string (plaintext)
is then encrypted as follows:
1. Compress using gzip: gzippedPlaintext = gzip(plaintext)
2. Generate random 24 byte nonce: nonce = randombytes(24)
3. threemaSafeEncryptedBackup = nonce ||
crypto_secretbox(gzippedPlaintext, 
threemaSafeEncryptionKey, nonce)
|| = concatenation
The crypto_secretbox operation is described in the NaCl documentation.

Upload/Storage

The encrypted data (threemaSafeEncryptedBackup) is uploaded to, or downloaded

from, the Threema Safe server using simple WebDAV-compatible HTTPS requests (see below
for details). The threemaSafeBackupId in lowercase hex encoding is used as a filename. If
the user disables Threema Safe, a DELETE request is issued by the app.

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Backup Intervals

When Threema Safe is enabled and a backup password is set, the Threema app generates
a backup once per day when the app is in use. If the backup data has changed since the last
upload, or if more than half of the server-specified backup retention time has passed, then
the backup is uploaded to the server, replacing any existing backup with the same ID that may
already exist on the server.

Restore/Decryption

1. User enters their Threema ID and password in the setup screen.

2. Derive the master key as described above.
3. Fetch threemaSafeEncryptedBackup from the server using the
threemaSafeBackupId.
4.
nonce = threemaSafeEncryptedBackup[0..23]
5. gzippedPlaintext  =
crypto_secretbox_open(threemaSafeEncryptedBackup[24..],
nonce, threemaSafeEncryptionKey)
The crypto_secretbox operation is described in the NaCl documentation.
6.
plaintext = gunzip(gzippedPlaintext)

The decrypted and decompressed JSON document (plaintext) is then used to restore the
Threema ID and other information.

Running a Custom Threema Safe Server

When setting up Threema Safe, a custom backup server URL may be specified by the
user. This URL must start with https:// and may include username/password information
(e.g. https://username:[email protected]/path). The server must use a TLS
certificate trusted by the operating system.

The server must respond to the following requests (paths relative to the backup URL):

Request Server Configuration

GET config
Accept: application/json

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Response Codes

Code Description

200 OK Response body contains the configuration, see example below.

400 Bad Request Validation failed.

Example Response
{
    "maxBackupBytes": 524288,
    "retentionDays": 180
}

The app uses maxBackupBytes to determine whether a backup is too big to be uploaded
(in which case the user is alerted). retentionDays is used to determine backup expiration:
if retentionDays/2 days have elapsed since the last backup, the backup is uploaded again
even if the backup data has not changed, to keep the backup from expiring.
Create/Update Backup
PUT backups/<threemaSafeBackupId>
Content-Type: application/octet-stream

The threemaSafeEncryptedBackup is sent along unmodified in the PUT body.

Validation
• The threemaSafeBackupId must be a 64 character lowercase hex string
• The Content-Type header must be set to application/octet-stream

Response Codes

Code Description

200 OK The backup was created or updated (for servers that do not differentiate
between the two).

201 Created The backup was created.

204 No Content The backup was updated.

400 Bad Request Validation failed.

413 Payload Too Large Message body is too large.

429 Too Many Request Rate limit reached.

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Fetch Backup
GET backups/<threemaSafeBackupId>
Accept: application/octet-stream

Validation
• The threemaSafeBackupId must be a 64 character lowercase hex string
• The Accept header must be set to application/octet-stream

Response Codes

Code Description

200 OK Response body contains the threemaSafeEncryptedBackup.

400 Bad Request Validation failed.

404 Not Found No backup was found at the specified URL.

429 Too Many Requests Rate limit reached.

Delete Backup
DELETE backups/<threemaSafeBackupId>

Validation
• The threemaSafeBackupId must be a 64 character lowercase hex string

Response Codes

Code Description

200 OK The backup was deleted.

204 No Content The backup was deleted.

400 Bad Request Validation failed.

404 Not Found No backup was found at the specified URL.

429 Too Many Requests Rate limit reached.

Security Recommendations
The following recommendations are not required for automated backups to work, but they
improve security. Implementing these recommendations is especially important when offering
a public service.

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Throttling
To avoid misuse, throttling/rate limiting should be enforced in the server. It is up to
the implementer whether to limit requests based on the peer’s IP address, or the
requested threemaSafeBackupId. If the limit has been reached, requests must be
responded to with a HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests) status code.

If the server software itself does not support rate limiting, this can be implemented by using a
Proxy like Nginx or HAProxy.

User Agent Validation

All requests from a real Threema app contain a user agent header containing the string
“Threema”. If the user agent does not contain that string, HTTP 400 should be returned by
the server.

Data Retention
Backups should be automatically deleted after a certain amount of time, as specified in the
“retentionDays” configuration key.

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