Calling All Zoom Phone Users: Voice Needs Security Too

Last week, Zoom announced they are rolling out a new end-to-end encryption (E2EE) feature next week as phase one of a four-phase security plan. According to the company’s announcement, the E2EE feature will be available as a technical preview for hosts and attendees (for sessions with up to 200 participants).

Earlier this year, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said the company would offer end-to-end encryption to all users, making the security features available to all, including paying and free customers, a change in policy some observers believe was triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, which forced millions of workers to interact from home.

With the mass adoption and media reporting on the Zoom phenomenon came increased scrutiny that revealed gaps despite the company’s statements earlier that E2EE was already in place.

"End-to-end encryption is another stride toward making Zoom the most secure communications platform in the world,” Yuan said last Wednesday in a blog post. “This phase of our E2EE offering provides the same security as existing end-to-end-encrypted messaging platforms, but with the video quality and scale that has made Zoom the communications solution of choice for hundreds of millions of people.”

Also last week, Ribbon Communications (News - Alert) announced additional key solutions from its market-leading Intelligent Edge Session Border Controller portfolio have been certified to deliver carrier-grade premises and cloud-based voice calling capabilities to Zoom Phone (News - Alert).

Zoom Phone is a crucial component of Zoom Video Communications’ unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solution that enables users to seamlessly make and receive phone calls, share content, participate in video meetings, and send chat messages from Zoom desktop and mobile apps. Ribbon’s Intelligent Edge SBC portfolio allows organizations to leverage Zoom’s “Bring Your Own Carrier” (BYOC) capabilities to securely connect their Zoom Phone service to a preferred service provider.

“Ribbon’s suite of SBCs simplify interoperability so organizations can negotiate the best possible services with the carrier of their choice,” a Ribbon company announcement said. “In addition, Ribbon SBCs deliver advanced communications network security while providing both local and centralized management to accelerate deployments and simplify troubleshooting.”

“Zoom is one of the fastest growing unified communications platforms in the world, having experienced exponential growth, particularly over the past year – so we are delighted to have our Intelligent Edge SBC portfolio certified to deliver secure communications services for Zoom Phone users,” said Steven Bruny, EVP. Sales, Americas Region for Ribbon. “This latest certification is just another example of how we are continuing to work with world-class partners to deliver secure and innovative solutions designed to help our partners and their customers meet the growing demands of today’s cloud-first, digital-first world.”

“Ribbon’s session border controllers are deployed and trusted in many of the world’s largest communications networks, which provides peace of mind that extends even beyond our extensive certification requirements, knowing their solutions are extensively market-tested,” said Karen Hong (News - Alert), Zoom Phone Senior Product Manager, Zoom. “We want to make a frictionless experience for our customers transitioning to Zoom Phone, and Ribbon’s SBCs provide them with the ability to retain existing carrier relationships or select a service provider that offers both quality and value, further enhancing the benefits of Zoom Phone.”

Bruny added, “Along with its unprecedented growth since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many Zoom customers are increasingly moving away from traditional PBXs and migrating all of their communications systems to unified communications service in the cloud. Our certification simplifies that move for Zoom resellers and Ribbon partners. It also makes it easier for communications service providers to deliver SIP Trunking services to Zoom Phone customers, knowing that testing has already been completed by Ribbon.”