Zoom vowed to revamp its security protocols after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found the video conferencing tool was misleading users by claiming its encryption was stronger than it really was. As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe, digital communication tools like Zoom saw a dramatic increase in user numbers. And as competition between platforms intensified, Zoom claimed that the end-to-end encryption it offered made it impossible for anyone to listen in on calls. Zoom has now had to drop those claims in a settlement with the FTC. “In its complaint, the FTC alleged that, since at least 2016, Zoom has misled users by boasting that it offers '256-bit end-to-end encryption' to protect user communications, while in fact, provided a lower level of security,” an FTC press release explained. “End-to-end encryption is a method of protecting communications so that only the sender and recipient(s), and no other person, not even the platform provider, can read the content. In fact, the FTC alleges, Zoom withheld the cryptographic keys that would allow Zoom to access the content of its clients' meetings and secured its Zoom meetings, in part, with a lower level of encryption than promised.