In a technological preview, the Zoom video conferencing platform will begin rolling out end-to – end encryption (E2EE) next week.
In May, the company unveiled plans to offer end-to-end encryption to customers, and in June announced that it would make the feature open to all customers, although it originally intended to leave out free users.
The organisation has also improved the fact that encryption will be offered to all free and paying users and that they will be able to hold E2EE meetings of up to 200 attendees, thereby benefiting from enhanced privacy and security.
“We are pleased to announce that Zoom’s end-to – end encryption (E2EE) offering will be available as a functional preview beginning next week, which means that we are proactively asking consumers for input over the first 30 days,” the company said earlier this week.
This, Zoom notes, is just the first step of its four-phase implementation strategy, which seeks to provide rigorous security “to help deter decryption keys from being intercepted that could be used to track meeting information.”
With E2EE, Zoom says, in Zoom meetings, consumers can take advantage of the same security already available, with the only difference being where the encryption keys are stored. These keys are usually generated and distributed to meeting participants in the Zoom cloud, but with Zoom E2EE, the keys are generated and distributed by the host of the meeting.
Zoom ‘s servers never see the encryption keys that are used to decrypt the meeting material, with these keys being spread using public key cryptography.
Zoom users may need to allow account-level encrypted meetings and also opt-in on a per-meeting basis for the new functionality.
The business further clarifies that allowing E2EE disables such functionality in Zoom, such as 1:1 private chat, Breakout Rooms, cloud recording, host enter, live transcription, downloading, voting, and meeting reactions.
When end-to – end encryption is allowed, attendees at a Zoom meeting can see a green shield logo in the upper left corner of the screen with a padlock in the centre. The symbol is similar to GCM encryption, but instead of a checkmark, it features a lock.
Participants can also see the authentication code of the meeting leader that they will use to check the protected connexion. The host will read this code out loud, and all respondents will verify if the same code is shown by their customers , ” Zoom says.
The E2EE deployment phase two is scheduled for 2021 and will include improved identity security and incorporation with E2EE SSO.
Another move in making Zoom the world’s most secure messaging network is end-to – end encryption. This stage of our E2EE offering offers the same encryption as current end-to – end encrypted messaging systems, along with the consistency and size of video that has made Zoom the networking solution of choice for hundreds of millions of people and the largest businesses in the world , ” said Eric S. Yuan, CEO of Zoom.
