Zoom 5.0 Amplifies User Privacy; Brings 256-Bit GMC Encryption

Zoom video conferencing platform has seen exponential growth in user-base since coronavirus lockdown across the globe. It offers both free and paid subscription plans with support for up to 1000 participants. When it comes to security, the service has been questioned a lot regarding the user-safety.

With the latest Zoom 5.0 update, the company claims to have fixed some of these issues. According to the company, Zoom is now more secure than ever and it even claims that it is more protected when compared to the competitive video conference services.

What's New With Zoom 5.0?

Zoom 5.0 now uses GMC (Galois/Counter Mode) encryption, which is an algorithm that provides stronger authentication along with an error detecting code. The algorithm is used to detect both intentional and un-authorized modifications.

In simpler words, hacking Zoom 5.0 is very difficult and even if someone tries to hack or get into a meeting, the service will know about it. GCS uses 256-bit encryption along with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), which makes it even harder to crack.

The two major functionalities of GCS are authenticated encryption and authenticated decryption, ensuring both data entering and the data going out will be safe and even if someone outside Zoom 5.0 gets access to the data, they won't be able to decode it without the exact encryption key, making user-data more secure.

Zoom 5.0 update was released on April 27 and the company will mandate Zoom 5.0 update post-May 30th, where users will not be able to use Zoom services if they are running on an older version of the app.

Along with this, Zoom 5.0 also gives additional controls to hosts, where one can control, screen share, chat, and they can also report a user for any misuse of the platform, and the Zoom team will review it. By default, cloud recordings are now encrypted using complex passwords.

There is also a new feature called audio watermark, which will help detect an audio recording from a meeting using an inaudible watermark, using which Zoom can decrypt the user who has recorded the audio. Lastly, it superimposes participants e-mail ID on to the shared content while screen sharing.