Recognizing that distributed work expands organizations’ attack surface, Zoom is introducing new features designed to help customers communicate securely, including a new end-to-end encrypted feature for Zoom Mail Service, advanced encryption for voicemail and an auto-update feature.
The company announced the incoming launch of Zoom Mail and Calendar that will allow users to access existing email accounts from popular services within the Zoom desktop client as well as its own Mail and Calendar service hosted on Zoom’s Infrastructure. According to Zoom, those services will offer end-to-end encryption for emails sent directly between active Zoom Mail Service users.
In a blog, Zoom CISO Michael Adams says the end-to-end encryption feature is designed to enhance the privacy of users’ emails.
“It will support end-to-end encryption for emails between Zoom Mail Service users, meaning that the customer — not Zoom — controls the encryption keys and therefore access to email contents, including any attachments or the email’s subject line,” Adams says. “Information such as the sender and recipients, attachment number and size, and timestamps will remain available to Zoom servers as they are necessary to provide the service.”
To use end-to-end encryption in Zoom Mail Service, users on each end of the email must use email addresses assigned through Zoom Mail Service and have one or more devices associated with each email address. End-to-end encrypted emails sent and received by other Zoom Mail Service users will be marked with a green shield icon at the bottom of the message, Adams says.
Email messages to and from email accounts that are not hosted by Zoom will not be end-to-end encrypted, but will still be encrypted at rest by Zoom and marked with an orange shield icon (as “server encrypted”) at the bottom of the message, according to Adams.
Zoom Mail Service encrypts incoming emails from third-party email services as soon as possible upon receipts, the company’s security chief says.
Another security feature Zoom announced is advanced encryption to Zoom Phone voicemail after rolling out end-to-end encryption for Zoom Phone. This feature—available now in beta—allows account administrators on the Zoom Phone Power Pack plan to visit their account, group or phone management settings to turn the feature on for specific users or all users on their account.
When enabled, voicemails are received and recorded by Zoom servers and then encrypted with keys only known to their intended recipients’ devices. For enterprise users with the escrow feature enabled, the keys might be also shared with the user’s account admin, according to Adams.
Zoom is also expanding its automatic update feature for enterprises, helping provide more flexibility and security for enterprise customers hoping to roll out Zoom updates automatically to their users. The feature, which will be available in the comping weeks, comes after the company introduced automatic updates to its broader consumer base last fall.
Previously, account admins could only deploy single versions of Zoom for Windows and macOS for their users, but the new auto-update feature helps organizations keep their users on the latest versions of Zoom software. For accounts with Zoom Device Management enabled, administrators can select which users they are ready to update to the newest version of Zoom in the Zoom dashboard.
According to Adams, admins can also select from two frequencies to push out new versions of our software: a “Slow” option with fewer updates and a focus on stability, and a “Fast” option to distribute the newest updates and features as soon as possible. Admins may also select a specific time to automatically install new versions of Zoom to their users, or whether to install them when the user’s Zoom desktop client is inactive.
Read Zoom’s blog to learn more about these security announcements and read our story on Zoom’s key announcements from Zoomtoptia 2022.
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