Arattai’s Biggest Security Overhaul Nears Completion, Says Zoho CEO

Zoho Chief Executive Officer Sridhar Vembu announced that the company's homegrown messaging platform called Arattai has achieved the final rollout stage for system-wide default-enforced End-to-End Encryption (E2EE). The update is one of the biggest architectural changes in the app, which is currently undergoing final internal testing with the deployment expected in some time.

In a detailed update shared on X, Vembu explained that the team has chosen "Option 2," where end-to-end encryption will be mandatory for all conversations. The rollout will begin with one-on-one chats and later extend to group chats. Explaining the scale of the change, Vembu said, "We had to do some redesigning and wanted extensive testing because this is a major change."

According to him, the original method of encrypting data was working well, but challenges arose in the migration workflow and file transfer process when encryption was made mandatory. These problems were discovered during testing conducted by approximately 6,000 Zoho employees. In a follow-up post, Vembu explained, "The issues encountered were with the mandatory switch-over process and difficulties transferring large files. The switch-over process has now been improved."

A new build that addresses these issues is now being tested internally. If this phase runs smoothly, the update will be released to all users, but with a forced upgrade. Vembu said, "This will be a forced upgrade for everyone because it's a major change."

Users who update the app today may experience a faster and smoother interface, but the mandatory encryption feature won't be active until Zoho enables it from the backend. Vembu said, "Although the code for mandatory E2E encryption is already present, it won't work until we enable it, and we'll do that after another round of testing."

The announcement sparked discussion among users. Some asked whether this change was being made solely for privacy reasons or was also influenced by regulatory expectations. Some users also questioned what would happen to old chats. Some responses also mentioned the need to strengthen Arattai's marketing. One user said that simply having a good product "isn't enough unless people know about it."

Many users praised this cautious approach. One community member wrote, "Rashly rolling out encryption could do more harm than good."

Vembu concluded the update by thanking users and saying that Arattai is preparing for its biggest security upgrade ever.