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- How end-to-end encryption works in Zoom | Kaspersky official blog
E2EE is best for when you want enhanced privacy and data protection for your meetings, and is an extra layer to mitigate risk and protect sensitive meeting content. Individual Zoom users should determine whether they need these features before enabling this version of E2EE in their meetings.
Not right now. Participants can look for a green shield logo in the upper left corner of their meeting screen with a padlock in the middle to indicate their meeting is using E2EE. For video chat, your options are more sparse. Apple offers it for up to 32 participants on FaceTime, while WhatsApp allows up to eight people at a time. Signal can manage only one-on-one encrypted calls at the moment. And so Zoom went on a spending spree, bringing on high-profile consultants from the world of cryptography and buying up Keybase , a company that specializes in end-to-end encryption.
The result of that flurry: Zoom finally delivered on its security promises at the end of October. What Zoom launched is actually a day technical preview; the company will continue to refine the offering through next year. But even in its early days, it offers a significant upgrade in protection for those who need it most. There are a few caveats before deciding whether you want to fully end-to-end encrypt your Zoom calls.
First is that Zoom meetings are encrypted by default regardless, just not end-to-end. Turning on end-to-end encryption comes with various inconveniences. When you have it enabled, all call participants need to call in from either the Zoom desktop or mobile apps—not a browser—or a Zoom Room. That also means no telephone participants. You also need a Zoom account to enable it, which, fair enough. But while Zoom has relented on its previous stipulation that only paying customers could access end-to-end encryption, free accounts still need a valid phone number and billing option to take advantage, which Zoom has said helps prevent abuse of the feature.
For individual users, go ahead and sign into your account on the Zoom web portal. Zoom must agree to yearly internal security reviews and external security reviews every other year and must implement a vulnerability-management program. Another stipulation was that Zoom offer customers multi-factor authentication , which it has already implemented.
Researchers in Texas and Oklahoma discovered that it's possible to tell what someone is typing during a Zoom call just by watching their shoulders and arms. Any kind of video-conferencing platform could be used for this, the researchers said, as could YouTube videos or streaming platforms like Twitch. Zoom's end-to-end-encryption feature finally went live, except on iOS where it had to wait for Apple's approval. We've got instructions on how to enable Zoom's end-to-end encryption.
After a long period of time with no Zoom news, the company announced that the end-to-end encryption it had been working on for many months would soon be available for beta testing. Users will have to wait for a Zoom client software update in the third week of October. Meeting hosts will be deciding whether to make a Zoom meeting end-to-end encrypted. Those meetings will not work for now for users trying to join via the web-browser interface or over the telephone.
If you recall that the Zoom web interface was out of commission for a few days back in April , now we know why: The company was fixing a very serious security flaw that could have let anyone join a private Zoom meeting.
British security researcher Tom Anthony opens in new tab detailed on his blog this week how he found that he could make endless random guesses on the 6-digit PINs Zoom assigns to private meetings. That's a million possibilities to go through, which might be tough for a human, but isn't hard for a decently powered PC running multiple threads.
Anthony found he could break into Zoom meetings in about half an hour, give or take. That's long before many meetings are over. An unnamed security researcher found a critical flaw in the Zoom meetings client software for Windows that would let a hacker remotely take over any PC running Windows 7 or earlier. Zoom fixed the flaw with a software update soon after the flaw became public knowledge. Backing down after sustained criticism from privacy advocates, Zoom announced in a blog posting June 17 opens in new tab that its upcoming end-to-end encryption E2E wouldn't just be for paid users any more.
The millions of people who use Zoom for free for school, socializing and work would get end-to-end encryption too. Yuan wrote. But if you're a free user who wants E2E, you'll first have to verify your identity to Zoom via a one-time-password or similar service. This will make it harder to "zoom bomb" meetings. The E2E encryption will remain an optional feature, Yuan reminded, because when it's activated, no one can join a meeting over the phone or with certain office teleconferencing equipment.
It'll be up to meeting hosts whether to activate E2E. Zoom's in hot water in the U. The company apologized for the actions in a blog post June 11 opens in new tab and said it would develop a way to block meeting participants from certain locations i. That wasn't enough to satisfy more than a dozen U.
Yuan demanding to know how cozy his company was with the Beijing government. Talos opens in new tab , an information-security research firm owned by Cisco, revealed June 3 that it had found two serious flaws in Zoom client applications, both of which have now been patched. The first flaw opens in new tab would have let an attacker use a specially created animated GIF placed in a Zoom meeting chat to hack Zoom client software on other people's machines to force the installation of malware, or, as Talos put it, "achieve arbitrary code execution.
The second flaw opens in new tab also involves the chat function in Zoom meeting client software, with similarly serious potential consequences. The problem was that Zoom did not validate the contents of shared compressed files such as.
An attacker could have sent malware in the form of a compressed file to a user via Zoom meeting chat, and the user's Zoom client would have saved and opened the malware within the Zoom application's directory.
Even worse, if the user were to save the Zoom compressed file elsewhere on the PC, such as on the desktop, then the attacked could send an altered version of the first file with the same name. Zoom would open the second version but not the first automatically, permitting the malware to "plant binaries at almost arbitrary paths and Zoom's upcoming end-to-end encryption is mainly for paid users, as Zoom itself stated back on May 7. But Alex Stamos, a well-known information-security expert who is consulting Zoom on security matters, told Reuters opens in new tab last week that schools and other non-profit enterprises might be able to also get the end-to-end encryption for their accounts.
All administrators of Zoom Rooms need to update their software opens in new tab by May 30, Zoom said in a blog posting May The update to Zoom 5. More information about updating Zoom Rooms is here opens in new tab. The 5. Two more instances of corrupted Zoom installers were found by Trend Micro researchers. The first opens up a backdoor on a PC; the second spies on the PC's owner with screenshots, keylogging and webcam hijacking and drafts the PC into the Devil Shadow botnet.
Both installers do install the Zoom software client, so victims may be none the wiser. As always, get your Zoom software straight from the Zoom website at Zoom. Zoom suffered an unexplained outage Sunday, May 17, rendering it unavailable to thousands of users in the U.
The outage, which began Sunday morning U. Even the British government's daily coronavirus briefing opens in new tab was affected, knocking out the ability of journalists to ask questions over Zoom. Some users reported on Twitter that logging out of Zoom accounts, then logging back in, seemed to solve the issue. Zoom's status page noted that a backend update had taken place earlier Sunday morning, but there didn't seem to be any linkage between that update and the outage that began a few hours later.
The Zoom status page opens in new tab said at the time that the outages "appear to be limited to a subset of users" and that Zoom was "working to identify the root cause and scope of this issue.
Cybercriminals may have registered hundreds of new Zoom-related website addresses in the past few weeks, according to researchers at Israeli security firm Check Point opens in new tab. Many of these sites are being used in phishing attacks to grab victims' Zoom usernames and passwords, and similar scams are leveraging rival video-conferencing platforms such as Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.
Over the weekend, online vandals hijacked the graduation ceremony at Oklahoma City University opens in new tab , replacing the Zoom video feed with racist language and symbols. It wasn't immediately clear whether this was a result of regular Zoom-bombing or if the attackers used less well-known methods to disrupt the video feed.
Zoom announced May 7 opens in new tab that due to its technical-support staff being overwhelmed with calls, it would be able to give personal technical assistance only to "owners and administrators" of paid accounts. In other words, any user, owner or administrator of a free Zoom account, and end users of paid accounts, won't be entitled to human help.
Instead, they'll have to rely on the FAQs and how-to's list on the Zoom online resources opens in new tab page. For now, this provision applies only to May and June If the coronavirus lockdown last longer than that, Zoom may have to hire more tech-support staffers.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James' office reached an agreement with Zoom opens in new tab May 7 following an investigation into Zoom's security and privacy practices. There isn't a lot of new stuff in the agreement. Most of the stipulations Zoom agreed to are things the company is already doing, including making passwords mandatory and using better encryption. In the long term, Zoom has to conduct regular code reviews and conduct yearly penetration-testing exercises, in which paid hackers try to break through the company's defenses.
Only two new things will directly affect consumers. It also has to update its Acceptable Use policies to ban "abusive conduct include hatred against others based on race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, gender, or sexual orientation.
Frankly, these are longstanding standard policies at many other online companies, so we're a little surprised that they weren't already Zoom policies. Yuan announced opens in new tab. The purchase price or other terms of the deal were not disclosed. Keybase makes user-friendly software to easily and securely encrypt messaging and social media posts.
In March, Zoom had to admit that its touted "end-to-end" encryption was not the real thing because Zoom's own servers are always able to access the contents of meetings. Once Keybase's technology is incorporated, that will no longer always be the case. Meeting passwords and waiting rooms will be required by default for all Zoom meetings, free or paid, beginning May 9, Zoom announced.
Only hosts will be able to share their screens by default, but like the other settings, that can be changed. Yuan said the massive increase in Zoom usage since the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown had been "challenging," but also provided "opportunities for us to drive meaningful change and improvement.
Yuan admitted that "we failed to set pre-configured security features for our new customers, especially for schools," referring to meeting passwords and waiting rooms. That resulted in "uninvited, offensive, and sometimes even truly evil people disrupting meetings," Yuan wrote.
Such a person disrupted a Zoom meeting on sexual violence opens in new tab in the Bay Area last week. Yuan also addressed rumors about his own, and Zoom's, ties to China. He said he had lived in the U. A reporter for London's Financial Times resigned after he was caught crashing internal Zoom meetings at rival London newspapers.
Mark Di Stefano announced his resignation on Twitter opens in new tab after The Independent opens in new tab documented how Di Stefano had last week joined an Independent staff meeting regarding pay cuts and furloughs, first under his own name, then anonymously.
Di Stefano cited his sources as "people on the call," The Independent said. The Independent also found that Di Stefano's cellphone had earlier been used to access a Zoom meeting at the Evening Standard, another London newspaper. That meeting was followed by a Financial Times piece about Evening Standard furloughs and pay cuts.
Zoom isn't the only video-conferencing platform to have questionable privacy policies, Consumer Reports opens in new tab said in a blog post: Cisco Webex, Microsoft's Teams and Skype, and Google's Duo, Meet and Hangouts do too. Consumer Reports said you should know that everything in a video meeting may be recorded, either by the host or another participant.
It also recommended dialing into video-conference meetings over the phone, not creating accounts with the services if possible, and using "burner" email addresses otherwise. After prodding from reporters at The Verge opens in new tab , Zoom admitted that it did not in fact have a recent peak of million daily users, as stated in a blog post last week. Rather, Zoom had a peak of million daily "participants. Researchers at Trend Micro spotted another Zoom installer file that had been corrupted with malware.
In this case, it's spyware that can turn on the webcam, take screenshots and log keystrkes, as well as collecting diagnostic data about the system it's running on. It also installs a fully working version of the Zoom desktop client. You don't need to install any software on your desktop to run Zoom. Zoom is a prime target for foreign spies, especially Chinese intelligence operatives, the Department of Homeland Security has warned U.
Foreign spies would be interested in any internet-based communications medium that saw such a steep increase in growth. But the DHS report singled out China as a likely meddler in Zoom security because Zoom has a substantial number of staffers in that country. However, Zoom in the past week has given paid meeting hosts the option of avoiding Zoom servers in specific regions, including China and North America.
Unpaid Zoom hosts will by default use only servers in their home regions. A new report from Mozilla , the non-profit maker of the Firefox web browser, says that Zoom's privacy and security policies and practices are better than those of Apple FaceTime. FaceTime got only 4. A new Zoom phishing scam is sure to get the attention of anyone working from home during the coronavirus lockdown.
It seems to come from your employer's HR department, and invites you to join a Zoom meeting starting in a few minutes to discuss possible termination of your employment. If you click on the link in the email to join the meeting, you're taken to a very real-looking Zoom login page. It's fake. If you enter your credentials, then the crooks can take over your Zoom account. Zoom has finally updated its meeting-client software to version 5. Here's our guide on how to update to Zoom 5.
The update is not yet available for iOS, as Apple has to vet the software before the new version of the app can be pushed out. We also couldn't see in the Google Play app store as of Monday afternoon Eastern time April 27 , but odds are it will appear soon.
No other company may have benefited more from the stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus crisis. To put that in perspective, daily usage peaked at million people per day in March, the company said on April 1 opens in new tab. In December , Zoom usage peaked at 10 million daily users. The new version will include many of the security fixes we've recently seen for the Zoom web interface, including the abilities to kick out Zoom bombers from meetings, make sure meeting data doesn't go through China, and put everyone waiting for a meeting in a "waiting room.
We checked the Zoom changelogs opens in new tab and discovered that the update won't be available until Sunday, April Cisco Talos researchers said Zoom's meeting chat function made it too easy for outsiders to find all Zoom users in an particular organization. If you had a valid Zoom account, Cisco Talos explained in a blog post opens in new tab , you could pretend that you worked at any organization and get the full names and chat IDs of every registered Zoom user whose email address used that organization's email domain.
You would not have to verify that you worked there, and you wouldn't even need to be in a Zoom meeting to get the information. That information "could be leveraged to disclose further contact information including the user's email address, phone number and any other information that is present in their vCard," or digital business card, Cisco Talos wrote. In a blog post opens in new tab April 20, Zoom said the option of excluding certain countries from call routing was now live.
This will let Zoom meeting administrators avoid having meeting data routed through Zoom servers in China, the U. New updates to the Zoom platform opens in new tab for the web interface rolled out April 19 include masking some participant personal information, such as email addresses or phone numbers, during meetings. Another change is that users who share the same email domain will no longer be able to search for each other by name.
The New York Times opens in new tab reported that Dropbox executives were so concerned about security flaws in Zoom that in Dropbox created its own secret bug-bounty program for Zoom flaws. In other words, Dropbox would pay hackers for security vulnerabilities they found in Zoom. Dropbox staffers used Zoom regularly, and Dropbox was an investor in Zoom. The Times reported that Dropbox would confirm the flaws, then pass them along to Zoom so that Zoom could fix them.
Zoom-meeting video recordings saved on Zoom's cloud servers can be easily discovered and often viewed, a security researcher told Cnet opens in new tab. Phil Guimond opens in new tab noticed that online recordings of Zoom meetings have a predictable URL structure and are thus easy to find. The Washington Post reported last week on a similar issue with Zoom recordings that had been uploaded by users to third-party cloud servers.
In those cases, the file names of meeting recordings followed a predictable pattern. Until Zoom pushed out a series of updates opens in new tab this past Tuesday, Zoom meeting recordings were not required to be password-protected.
Guimond built a simple tool that automatically searches for Zoom meeting recordings and tries to open them. If a meeting has a password, his tool tries to brute-force access by running through millions of possible passwords.
If a meeting recording is viewable, so is the Zoom meeting ID, and the attacker might be able to access future recurring meetings.
But, Guimond said, the URL pattern is still the same, and attackers could still try to open each generated result manually. Zoom announced it was hiring Luta Security opens in new tab , a consulting firm headed by Katie Moussouris, to revamp Zoom's "bug bounty" program, which pays hackers to find software flaws.
Moussouris set up the first bug-bounty programs at Microsoft and the Pentagon. In her own blog post opens in new tab , she announced that Zoom was bringing in other well-regarded information-security firms and researchers to improve its security.
In its weekly webinar, according to ZDNet opens in new tab , Zoom also said it would also let meeting hosts report abusive users, and newly hired security consultant Alex Stamos said Zoom would be switching to a more robust encryption standard after Zoom's existing encryption was found to be lacking.
In other news, a congressman has complained that a congressional briefing held over Zoom on April 3 was "zoom-bombed" opens in new tab at least three times. The head of Standard Chartered, a London-based multinational bank, has warned employees to not use Zoom or Google Hangouts for remote meetings, citing security concerns, according to Reuters opens in new tab. Standard Chartered primarily uses the rival Blue Jeans video-conferencing platform, according to two bank staffers who spoke anonymously.
Hackers are apparently offering to sell two "zero-day" exploits in Zoom to the highest bidder, Vice opens in new tab reports. Zero-days are hacks that take advantage of vulnerabilities the software maker doesn't know about, and which users have little or no defense against.
Sources who told Vice about the zero-days said one exploit is for Windows and lets a remote attacker get full control of a target's computer.
Zoom Reverses Course and Promises End-to-End Encryption for All Users | WIRED.Zoom Finally Has End-to-End Encryption. Here's How to Use It | WIRED
Phase one of Zoom's four-step encryption plan is live. Here are the must-knows about its security trial balloon. She's a data-driven investigative journalist on the software and services team, reviewing VPNs, password managers, antivirus software, anti-surveillance methods and ethics in tech. Whether you're using a free or paid Zoom account, you'll now be able to get your first look at the videoconferencing giant's new end-to-end encryption E2EE feature as the company rolls out the first phase of a four-step security plan.
The E2EE feature is available as a technical preview both for those who join and those who host sessions with up to participants, Zoom said Monday. The company is actively seeking feedback from users for the first 30 days after the feature's launch. Zoom also unveiled a new events platform, called OnZoom , and apps within Zoom called Zapps.
In May, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said the company would offer end-to-end encryption to all users , despite previously saying the feature would be a premium one, for paying customers only. As a massive surge in users at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic drove more people working from home toward the videoconferencing software, the increased public focus revealed several Zoom security problems , and the fact that an earlier Zoom claim of end-to-end encryption was baseless.
This phase of our E2EE offering provides the same security as existing end-to-end-encrypted messaging platforms, but with the video quality and scale that has made Zoom the communications solution of choice for hundreds of millions of people," Yuan said in a previous blog post. Read more : Zoom security issues: Zoom buys security company, aims for end-to-end encryption. Though Zoom meetings already have some level of encryption, that process usually happens when Zoom's own servers generate encryption keys and distribute them to meeting participants via the Zoom app.
All your information sent through Zoom's app during those meetings -- all the audio, video and in-app functions -- is then protected by default with standard AES encryption. That information isn't decrypted until it reaches your recipient.
Sounds good, right? It is, except that the encryption keys to your information are normally created and managed by Zoom's servers, which is a security liability. To improve on that flaw, Zoom's new E2EE feature takes a hands-off approach to your encryption keys by using public cryptography. So when you host a meeting and enable Zoom's E2EE feature, your meeting's encryption keys are generated by your own machine -- not Zoom's servers -- and sent to your meeting's participants.
Since Zoom's servers don't have the keys to unlock the secrets of your message, theoretically they have no way to decipher the content of your meetings. Zoom said there are limits to the new E2EE features' compatibility with the rest of Zoom's functions.
If you want to host a meeting with E2EE enabled, you've got options. Once the feature is live, account administrators will be able to make E2EE mandatory for anyone joining a meeting, and they'll be able to change that setting at the user, group or even entire account level. Free-level Zoom users enabling E2EE will be prompted the first time to go through a form of two-factor authentication, which may include verifying a phone number via text message.
If you're invited to a meeting as a participant, you'll be able to tell whether you're in an E2EE meeting by checking the upper left corner of your screen for a green shield logo -- similar to Zoom's current encryption symbol -- that will now have a padlock icon in its center instead of a checkmark.
The meeting host or leader will also have a hand in verifying that your meeting is secure. You'll be able to see your host's security code, and the host can read the code on her or his screen aloud so you can make sure it matches the code you're seeing. To give Zoom your take on its E2EE feature, you can submit feedback directly through the Zoom client, navigating to Settings and selecting Feedback.
For more, check out how to become a Zoom pro and how to change your background in Zoom. Your guide to a better future. Tech Mobile. Rae Hodge. Rae Hodge Senior Editor. Read more : Zoom security issues: Zoom buys security company, aims for end-to-end encryption Under the hood Though Zoom meetings already have some level of encryption, that process usually happens when Zoom's own servers generate encryption keys and distribute them to meeting participants via the Zoom app.
He added, however, that Zoom plans to roll out further improvements in How to enable encryption in Zoom If you want to host a meeting with E2EE enabled, you've got options.
Zoom If you're invited to a meeting as a participant, you'll be able to tell whether you're in an E2EE meeting by checking the upper left corner of your screen for a green shield logo -- similar to Zoom's current encryption symbol -- that will now have a padlock icon in its center instead of a checkmark.
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Zoom app encryption -
Security at Zoom See why millions of people and organizations trust us with their communications. Security Overview Privacy and security are top of mind for us at Zoom. Protecting your meetings Zoom offers several tools to protect your meetings, helping manage participant activity, information sharing, and more. Protecting your data Communications are established using bit TLS encryption and meeting, webinar and messaging Content can be encrypted using AES encryption, and optional end-to-end encryption.
Protecting your privacy Zoom is committed to protecting your privacy. If a meeting host enables cloud recording and audio transcripts, both will be stored encrypted. The account owner and people and apps they approve can access encrypted content stored in ZoomCloud and Zoom can access stored content for troubleshooting if requested by the account owner.
We are committed to remaining transparent and open as we build our end-to-end encryption offering. We plan to publish a detailed draft cryptographic design on Friday, May We will then host discussion sections with civil society, cryptographic experts, and customers to share more details and solicit feedback.
Once we have assessed this feedback for integration into a final design, we will announce our engineering milestones and goals for deploying to Zoom users. We look forward to welcoming the Keybase team and are excited for the possibilities of what we can build together.
You will need the following steps in order to enable End-to-End E2EE encrypted meetings for all users on the account:. As of August 21, , the Group Management page has been renamed to Groups if you have signed up for a new Zoom account after that date, or if you are using the New Admin Experience enabled for your account. Encrypted meetings end-to-end E2EE are enabled for a group of users when the following requirements are met:.
The following steps must be followed in order to enable your own End-to-End E2EE encrypted meetings:. The green shield icon should be visible in the upper left corner of the meeting window once you have joined the meeting.
It is also possible for the meeting host to read out the security code aloud to all participants, so they can confirm that their security codes are the same.
Using public key cryptography for its E2EE offering, Zoom uses a high level of security. Here are the must-knows about its security trial balloon. She's a data-driven investigative journalist on the software and services team, reviewing VPNs, password managers, antivirus software, anti-surveillance methods and ethics in tech.
Whether you're using a free or paid Zoom account, you'll now be able to get your first look at the videoconferencing giant's new end-to-end encryption E2EE feature as the company rolls out the first phase of a four-step security plan. The E2EE feature is available as a technical preview both for those who join and those who host sessions with up to participants, Zoom said Monday. The company is actively seeking feedback from users for the first 30 days after the feature's launch.
Zoom also unveiled a new events platform, called OnZoom , and apps within Zoom called Zapps. In May, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said the company would offer end-to-end encryption to all users , despite previously saying the feature would be a premium one, for paying customers only. As a massive surge in users at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic drove more people working from home toward the videoconferencing software, the increased public focus revealed several Zoom security problems , and the fact that an earlier Zoom claim of end-to-end encryption was baseless.
This phase of our E2EE offering provides the same security as existing end-to-end-encrypted messaging platforms, but with the video quality and scale that has made Zoom the communications solution of choice for hundreds of millions of people," Yuan said in a previous blog post.
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