Zoom Workplace Brings Post-quantum End-to-end Encryption To Bolster Security

As businesses accelerate the use of digital platforms for company-wide communications and messaging apps, enhanced, efficient and powerful cyber security, digital security, secure communication and other security measures have become vital.

Especially considering how often employees, management and top executives engage in the exchange of sensitive information and confidential business data.

Furthermore, the recent progress made with artificial intelligence (AI) and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has equipped bad actors and unauthorized users with even more powerful tools to attack such data.

While communication platforms come with advanced security and end-to-end encryption, bad actors have taken to new methods of sourcing the data with plans to decrypt them later, with plans to use powerful quantum computers in the future for such nefarious purposes.

Zoom, one of the most popular and most used communication platforms by businesses, has come up with a solution for such problems by announcing a new security feature.

So, what did the company reveal? Let’s explore!

What Did Zoom Announce?

Through a news release published on its website, Zoom Video Communications, Inc. announced that it was bringing post-quantum end-to-end encryption (PQ E2EE) to Zoom Workplace, specifically to Zoom Meetings.
“As adversarial threats become more sophisticated, so does the need to safeguard user data,” reads a line from the release.
The move would make Zoom the first UCaaS company to offer a post-quantum E2EE solution for video conferencing, after the new security enhancement was made available globally for Zoom Workplace.
Post-quantum end-to-end encryption (PQ E2EE) is similar to end-to-end encryption (E2EE) but is designed to thwart attacks of bad actors capturing encrypted network traffic now and attempting to decrypt the data in the future using a more powerful quantum computer, a scenario which is known as “harvest now, decrypt later”.
“So, while powerful quantum computers with this capability are not yet generally available, Zoom has taken a proactive stance by upgrading the algorithms designed to be able to withstand these potential future threats.”
Zoom further mentioned that PQ E2EE will be coming to Zoom Phone and Zoom Rooms soon.
The feature will be available for users once they upgrade their Zoom desktop and mobile app to version 6.0.10 or higher. In case some participants haven’t upgraded their app version, standard E2EE will be used.
At the same time, the company states that encrypted data relayed through its servers will remain encrypted, as its servers do not possess the necessary decryption keys.
As per a customer support article, Zoom comes with three types of encryptions; end-to-end encrypted or post-quantum end-to-end encrypted is displayed as a “green shield with padlock” icon, Enhanced comes with a “green shield with check mark” icon and Enhanced (with exceptions) uses an orange shield with exclamation point.
The release states that “Zoom’s post-quantum E2E encryption uses Kyber 768, an algorithm being standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as the Module Lattice-based Key Encapsulation Mechanism, or ML-KEM, in FIPS 203.”

TechDogs-"A Screenshot Of The Various Shield Icons And What They Mean On The Zoom Workplace"

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What Did Zoom Say?

Michael Adams, Chief Information Security Officer at Zoom, said, “Since we launched end-to-end encryption for Zoom Meetings in 2020 and Zoom Phone in 2022, we have seen customers increasingly use the feature, which demonstrates how important it is for us to offer our customers a secure platform that meets their unique needs.”
“With the launch of post-quantum E2EE, we are doubling down on security and providing leading-edge features for users to help protect their data. At Zoom, we continuously adapt as the security threat landscape evolves, with the goal of keeping our users protected.”

TechDogs-"An Image Showing An Enhanced Encryption Meeting In Progress On The Zoom Workplace App"

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Do you think this move by Zoom will help its market share in the corporate communications sector? Do you think rivals should make similar moves?

Let us know in the comments below!

First published on Fri, May 24, 2024

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Enterprise Solutions End-to-end Encryption Encryption IT Security Zoom Zoom Workplace Enhanced Security

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