The company’s cloud phone system, Zoom Phone, will have a new option to upgrade to E2EE during one-on-one phone calls.
Zoom, a popular video conferencing company based out of America, has released end-to-end encryption for Phones and Breakout Rooms to achieve “seamless and secure communication”.
What is end-to-end encryption, or E2EE?
According to an article by TechTarget, a secure communication method that prevents third parties from accessing data while it’s transferred from one end of the device to another is called end-to-end encryption, or E2EE. The message is encrypted from the sender’s end so that it can only be decrypted by the intended recipient and it cannot be tampered with or read by any other entity while it travels to its destination.
“Whether it’s E2EE for Zoom Phone and Breakout Rooms, our account theft protection tool, or automatic updates — we’re striving to make security accessible for everyone,” the company said in an official blog post.
“These are just a handful of the easy-to-use tools that you can use to help safeguard your information while maintaining the flexible, reliable Zoom experience. Our frictionless, innovative design isn’t mutually exclusive with a strong security posture — in fact, they’re one and the same,” it added.
The company’s cloud phone system, Zoom Phone, will have a new option to upgrade to E2EE during one-on-one phone calls. When users click “More,” an option to elevate the session to an end-to-end encrypted phone call will appear.
The upgrade will take a second, and adds an extra layer of security using cryptographic keys, which are known only to the devices of the caller and receiver. Users will have an additional option to verify E2EE status by providing a unique security code to one another, the company said.
There are certain prerequisites to enable the E2EE feature:
- The account admin will have to turn on E2EE via the web portal.
- Callers will need to be on the same Zoom account, and can only make one-to-one phone calls.
- Both users will have to use the Zoom Phone desktop or mobile client as PSTN is not supported.
- Both users will have to turn off the automatic call recording option.
Further, E2EE for Zoom meetings is also going to expand to Breakout Rooms, which are groups for smaller and focused discussions. It will be the same experience as a standard E2EE meeting, except each breakout room gets its own unique meeting encryption key, the company said.
The following versions will support Zoom’s encryption feature:
For desktop clients: 5.4.0 or higher for Windows, 5.4.0 or higher for macOS, and 5.4.0 or higher for Linux
For mobile app: 5.4.0 or higher for Android and iOS 5.4.0 or higher
For Zoom Rooms for Conference Room: 5.2.2 or higher for personal computers, 5.2.2 or higher for macOS, and for Appliances: 5.2.2 or higher.
