Videoconferencing giant Zoom has today announced that it is acquiring secure messaging and file-sharing service Keybase for an undisclosed amount.
The acquisition is designed to enable Zoom to accelerate its plans to add end-to-end encryption to its platform – an area it has previously come under fire for.
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At the end of March, the company attracted considerable criticism for claiming to offer end-to-end encryption in some marketing materials, but in reality only offering TLS, the security technology used to secure HTTPS websites. This means that while data transmitted between a user and Zoom is currently secure, the company can access unencrypted video and audio content of users.
This and a number of other security concerns have caused the service to be banned for use by some governments and inflicted considerable reputational damage on Zoom, prompting it to launch a 90-day plan to fix the problems.
End-to-end encryption has clearly been identified as a key part of this by Zoom, making the acquisition of Keybase a key part of its strategy.
“There are end-to-end encrypted communications platforms. There are communications platforms with easily deployable security. There are enterprise-scale communications platforms,” said Eric S Yuan, CEO of Zoom.
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By GlobalData“We believe that no current platform offers all of these. This is what Zoom plans to build, giving our users security, ease of use, and scale, all at once .”
In a blog post announcing the acquisition, the company said that it planned to offer an “end-to-end encrypted meeting mode to all paid accounts”, saying this would happen in the “near future”.
Keybase: The company bringing end-to-end encryption to Zoom
Founded in 2014 by Max Krohn and Chris Coyne, Keybase raised $10.8m in a Series A funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in 2015.
It currently offers text-based chat and file sharing through end-to-end encryption, built on a platform using public key cryptography, and which supports multiple devices per user and scaling for teams.
As a result, Zoom has identified Keybase as a vital missing piece of its encryption puzzle.
“Keybase brings deep encryption and security expertise to Zoom, and we’re thrilled to welcome Max and his team,” said Yuan.
“Bringing on a cohesive group of security engineers like this significantly advances our 90-day plan to enhance our security efforts.”
“Keybase is thrilled to join Team Zoom!” added Max Krohn, Keybase.io co-founder and developer.
“Our team is passionate about security and privacy, and it is an honour to be able to bring our encryption expertise to a platform used by hundreds of millions of participants a day.”
Read more: Zoom partners with Otter.ai for live transcriptions
