Zoom adds encryption as it passes 300 million daily users

Zoom’s rise in popularity in the last few months has been nothing short of meteoric. The company boasted just 10 million daily users in December 2019, but by March 2020 this number had exploded to 200 million. 

 

Today, the virtual meeting company has announced that April has seen another 100 million added to its daily user tally.

 

However, this dramatic rise to prominence has not been a bed of roses for the Zoom, with the company coming under fire for its lax security measures, including promising encryption while not actually being able to deliver it. In fact, many major organisations have moved away from Zoom entirely as a result of security fears, with Google, Apple, and NASA among those asking their employees not to use the platform. 

 

At the star of April, Zoom released a statement outlining a 90-day plan to address security concerns and now, with the rollout of update 5.0, the first of these new measures are coming into action. 

 

The update means the Zoom’s Meeting, Video Webinar, and Phone service data will be compliant with the AES 256-bit GCM encryption standard, meaning an end to encryption scepticism. This update is expected to be completely rolled out by the end of May.

 

Update 5.0 also included a number of additional security features, including giving users a choice of their data centre region, as well as providing them with additional security controls during meetings, including the ability to report uninvited people ‘zoombombing’ private meetings.

 

While these new security measures go some way to redeeming the platforms security reputation, more improvements will be required to see it embraced by the more security-conscious organisations once again. 

 

That said, with 100 million new daily users this month, any bad press Zoom may have been getting has clearly not deterred the public from using the platform. Simplicity is winning out against security once again.

 

In other news, Zoom may soon have a significant competitor on its hands, with Verizon buying video conferencing company BlueJeans earlier this month. BlueJeans has a lot of growing to do if it intends to pose a serious threat to Zoom’s hegemony over video conferencing.