UPDATED 12:51 EDT / MAY 07 2020

SECURITY

Zoom acquires encrypted chat startup Keybase to make meetings more secure

Zoom Video Communications Inc. today said that it has acquired Keybase Inc., an Andreessen Horowitz-backed encrypted-chat startup, to support its efforts to implement end-to-end encryption for its videoconferencing platform.

Zoom in April froze feature development for 90 days to address concerns around its privacy and security practices. Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan divulged at the time that the company planned to roll out an end-to-end encryption option for video meetings, but said the feature would take a few months to build. Buying Keybase could help speed up the effort.

The New York startup has developed a Slacklike messaging platform that provides end-to-end encryption for chat sessions. Messages are encrypted on the user’s device before they pass through Keybase’s servers and can only be decrypted by the recipients, which means even Keybase has no way of reading their contents.

Zoom will use the startup’s technology to build an end-to-end encryption mode for paid users. In a blog post detailing the plans, Yuan wrote that meetings for which a host enables that mode won’t allow participants to join via third-party conference phones, though Zoom’s own devices will be supported, and cloud recording will be disabled.

As far as how the encryption will work, the CEO explained that “an ephemeral per-meeting symmetric key will be generated by the meeting host” when they launch a call. Keys “will be under the control of the host, and the host’s client software will decide what devices are allowed to receive meeting keys, and thereby join the meeting,” Yuan added.

Zoom will release a technical outline of how it plans to implement the end-to-end encryption system on May 22. The company will invite civil society, cryptographic experts and customers to share feedback, which will then be integrated into the final system design.

“We believe this will provide equivalent or better security than existing consumer end-to-end encrypted messaging platforms, but with the video quality and scale that has made Zoom the choice of over 300 million daily meeting participants, including those at some of the world’s largest enterprises,” Yuan wrote.

That Zoom is drawing comparisons between its service and existing end-to-end encrypted messaging platforms for consumers is notable. The biggest name in that category is WhatsApp, whose owner Facebook Inc. recently took direct aim Zoom by launching a rival video conferencing platform called Messenger Rooms. Unlike WhatsApp, Messenger Rooms does not yet support end-to-end encryption, which Zoom could potentially exploit if it rolls out the technology to its platform sooner than Facebook does.

Zoom is also keeping in mind the enterprise customers that have historically represented its main target market. In his blog post, Yuan said that the company is looking into building “mechanisms that would allow enterprise users to provide additional levels of authentication” on top of the planned end-to-end encryption. 

Photo: Zoom

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