End-to-end encryption Explained: Balancing Security and Corporate Functionality
What is End-to-End Encryption?
End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) is a popular security method used in modern messengers. In an E2EE setup, data is encrypted on the sender's device and only decrypted on the recipient's device, ensuring that even the service provider cannot access the content.
E2EE is often regarded as the gold standard for security in messaging apps, with many believing it is an absolute necessity for protecting sensitive data. However, upon closer examination — or when consulting industry professionals — it becomes clear that the emphasis on E2EE in marketing materials is frequently more about branding than practicality, especially when it comes to messaging apps created for corporate use. In many cases, E2EE can limit essential corporate features such as group chats and meetings, screen sharing, meetings recording, files sharing, search, etc. It also makes both data backup and data recovery quite challenging.
E2EE and Cloud Corporate Messaging Providers
Due to the reasons mentioned above, most cloud providers of corporate messaging tools limit the use of E2EE to one-on-one chats and calls. For group chats, meetings, and other corporate features, they typically rely on encryption in transit and at rest instead.
As a result, using cloud-based solutions for corporate messaging often involves a trade-off between data security and ease of deployment.
E2EE and Self-Hosted Corporate Messengers
In self-hosted solutions like Virola Messenger — where all data is stored on your own servers — E2EE becomes redundant. Since data flows within a controlled environment where users connect directly to your server, encrypting data between endpoints is unnecessary - app providers cannot access this data as it remains within your infrastructure. In such self-hosted configurations, robust encryption in transit and at rest combined with access controls provide adequate protection without the constraints imposed by E2EE.
E2EE and Virola Messenger
If Virola implemented end-to-end encryption, the application's functionality would be severely limited — reducing it to basic chat capabilities without the ability to track tasks, keep chats' history, perform search, hold fully-functional meetings. To maintain the full range of corporate functionalities that Virola was designed to offer, we have chosen not to implement E2EE. As mentioned previously, E2EE is unnecessary for on-premise software since all data remains within your controlled infrastructure.