However, several users have criticised the company on Twitter for compromising basic security which is provided by other platforms that include WhatsApp, Google Duo, and Facetime. Alex Stamos, the company’s security consultant explained why the company has taken this decision with E2EE security.
Zoom Reveals Reason Behind Not Providing End-to-End Encryption to Free Users
Stamos said that Zoom is currently facing a “difficult balancing act” of trying to improve privacy while also “reducing the human impact of the abuse of its product.” Here, the security consultant refers to “hate speech, exposure to children and other illegal behaviours” that have infected Zoom in recent times. He further said that “self-service users” or the non-premium users often using the fake identities for disrupting the platform with such abuses. However, the executive has confirmed that enterprises such as schools and other educational institutes are getting the facility of E2EE while they are not paying a premium. During the conference call on Tuesday, Zoom CEO and Founder Eric Yuan said: “Free users, for sure, we don’t want to give that because we also want to work together with the FBI, with local law enforcement, in case some people use Zoom for the bad purpose.” Stomas says: The E2E design is available here:https://t.co/beLdeAwMSM — Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) June 3, 2020 “All users (free and paid) have their meeting content encrypted using a per-meeting AES256 key. Content is encrypted by the sending client and decrypted by receiving clients or by Zoom’s connector servers to bridge into the PSTN network and other services” Recommended Reading: Zoom Makes Huge Profit as Online Conferencing Becomes a Daily Norm
