Zoom acquires Keybase to reinforce its encryption.
Video Communications Inc. Zoom has acquired Keybase Inc to reinforce its service encryption.
This follows several complaints from users about the security of the platform.
The company in a statement said the procurement will push Zoom’s goal to become the most popular video conferencing tool with end-to-end encryption.
As a secure messaging platform Keybase’s engineers will help Zoom to develop end-to-end encryption.
Keybase has the highest standard of encryption which allows only a sender and recipient to see the information being exchanged.
Speaking on the issue, Co-founder and developer of Keybase.io, Max Krohn said, “Keybase is thrilled to join Team Zoom. Our team is passionate about security and privacy, and it is an honor to be able to bring our encryption expertise to a platform used by hundreds of millions of participants a day”.
Aside from that, Zoom is adding features such as passwords and waiting rooms to prevent cybercrooks from accessing users’ meetings.
Users of the video platform experienced uninvited guests who intrude video meetings especially with the popular “Zoombonbing”.
This made some companies and organizations proscribe Zoom for their meetings.
The video app gained popularity during the corona-virus pandemic, where most countries are under lock-down, halting all activities. Businesses have been closed thus heads of organizations turned to the app to meet with their partners and workers.
The video conferencing app now attracts 300 million users daily. At first, it claimed the service met high-security standards before correcting to say the platform has a lower level of encryption.
Currently, Zoom’s shares have risen more than 6% to $158.76 at noon in New York. The stock has more than doubled since the year started.
Keybase is a social networking service and a directory which offers an end-to-end encrypted chat and cloud storage system, known as Keybase Chat and Keybase Filesystem. Keybase was launched in 2014.
Zoom was founded by Eric Yuan in 2011 however, the software was launched in 2013.