Monday, August 1, 2022

Is Zoom Safe & Secure?

Is Zoom Safe & Secure?

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Zoom has been hurriedly addressing the myriad security flaws that have been unearthed in recent weeks, which is perhaps a sign that its developers were, at best, careless. Unfortunately, the suddenness with which employees were requested to work from home meant that organisations needed quick solutions.

Zoom has taken accountability for many of its security and privacy failings, which is always a positive step. Likewise, it has implemented several controls to improve its security posture, such as password-protecting meetings by default and adding a waiting room feature, which allows the host to select who can enter a meeting.

But perhaps the most important thing it did was to advise users on things they can do to stay safe. Remember when the UK government was criticised for holding a cabinet meeting on Zoom? However, in the wake of criticism, Zoom added end-to-end encryption for its subscribers — and will be extending the feature to all users from July. However, Yuan released a statement on June 17 saying that the organisation had changed its decision after speaking with civil liberties groups, child safety advocates, encryption experts, government representatives and users.

If you find yourself facing a cyber security disaster, IT Governance is here to help. Our Cyber Incident Response service provides the help you need to deal with the threat, as our experts guide you through the recovery process. But software vulnerabilities are just one of the many issues you should be concerned about. And do they understand the dangers of phishing scams? Luke Irwin is a writer for IT Governance.

It also installs a fully working version of the Zoom desktop client. You don't need to install any software on your desktop to run Zoom. Zoom is a prime target for foreign spies, especially Chinese intelligence operatives, the Department of Homeland Security has warned U.

Foreign spies would be interested in any internet-based communications medium that saw such a steep increase in growth. But the DHS report singled out China as a likely meddler in Zoom security because Zoom has a substantial number of staffers in that country. However, Zoom in the past week has given paid meeting hosts the option of avoiding Zoom servers in specific regions, including China and North America.

Unpaid Zoom hosts will by default use only servers in their home regions. A new report from Mozilla , the non-profit maker of the Firefox web browser, says that Zoom's privacy and security policies and practices are better than those of Apple FaceTime. FaceTime got only 4. A new Zoom phishing scam is sure to get the attention of anyone working from home during the coronavirus lockdown. It seems to come from your employer's HR department, and invites you to join a Zoom meeting starting in a few minutes to discuss possible termination of your employment.

If you click on the link in the email to join the meeting, you're taken to a very real-looking Zoom login page. It's fake. If you enter your credentials, then the crooks can take over your Zoom account. Zoom has finally updated its meeting-client software to version 5. Here's our guide on how to update to Zoom 5. The update is not yet available for iOS, as Apple has to vet the software before the new version of the app can be pushed out. We also couldn't see in the Google Play app store as of Monday afternoon Eastern time April 27 , but odds are it will appear soon.

No other company may have benefited more from the stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus crisis. To put that in perspective, daily usage peaked at million people per day in March, the company said on April 1 opens in new tab.

In December , Zoom usage peaked at 10 million daily users. The new version will include many of the security fixes we've recently seen for the Zoom web interface, including the abilities to kick out Zoom bombers from meetings, make sure meeting data doesn't go through China, and put everyone waiting for a meeting in a "waiting room.

We checked the Zoom changelogs opens in new tab and discovered that the update won't be available until Sunday, April Cisco Talos researchers said Zoom's meeting chat function made it too easy for outsiders to find all Zoom users in an particular organization. If you had a valid Zoom account, Cisco Talos explained in a blog post opens in new tab , you could pretend that you worked at any organization and get the full names and chat IDs of every registered Zoom user whose email address used that organization's email domain.

You would not have to verify that you worked there, and you wouldn't even need to be in a Zoom meeting to get the information. That information "could be leveraged to disclose further contact information including the user's email address, phone number and any other information that is present in their vCard," or digital business card, Cisco Talos wrote. In a blog post opens in new tab April 20, Zoom said the option of excluding certain countries from call routing was now live. This will let Zoom meeting administrators avoid having meeting data routed through Zoom servers in China, the U.

New updates to the Zoom platform opens in new tab for the web interface rolled out April 19 include masking some participant personal information, such as email addresses or phone numbers, during meetings. Another change is that users who share the same email domain will no longer be able to search for each other by name. The New York Times opens in new tab reported that Dropbox executives were so concerned about security flaws in Zoom that in Dropbox created its own secret bug-bounty program for Zoom flaws.

In other words, Dropbox would pay hackers for security vulnerabilities they found in Zoom. Dropbox staffers used Zoom regularly, and Dropbox was an investor in Zoom.

The Times reported that Dropbox would confirm the flaws, then pass them along to Zoom so that Zoom could fix them. Zoom-meeting video recordings saved on Zoom's cloud servers can be easily discovered and often viewed, a security researcher told Cnet opens in new tab. Phil Guimond opens in new tab noticed that online recordings of Zoom meetings have a predictable URL structure and are thus easy to find.

The Washington Post reported last week on a similar issue with Zoom recordings that had been uploaded by users to third-party cloud servers. In those cases, the file names of meeting recordings followed a predictable pattern. Until Zoom pushed out a series of updates opens in new tab this past Tuesday, Zoom meeting recordings were not required to be password-protected. Guimond built a simple tool that automatically searches for Zoom meeting recordings and tries to open them.

If a meeting has a password, his tool tries to brute-force access by running through millions of possible passwords. If a meeting recording is viewable, so is the Zoom meeting ID, and the attacker might be able to access future recurring meetings. But, Guimond said, the URL pattern is still the same, and attackers could still try to open each generated result manually. Zoom announced it was hiring Luta Security opens in new tab , a consulting firm headed by Katie Moussouris, to revamp Zoom's "bug bounty" program, which pays hackers to find software flaws.

Moussouris set up the first bug-bounty programs at Microsoft and the Pentagon. In her own blog post opens in new tab , she announced that Zoom was bringing in other well-regarded information-security firms and researchers to improve its security. In its weekly webinar, according to ZDNet opens in new tab , Zoom also said it would also let meeting hosts report abusive users, and newly hired security consultant Alex Stamos said Zoom would be switching to a more robust encryption standard after Zoom's existing encryption was found to be lacking.

In other news, a congressman has complained that a congressional briefing held over Zoom on April 3 was "zoom-bombed" opens in new tab at least three times. The head of Standard Chartered, a London-based multinational bank, has warned employees to not use Zoom or Google Hangouts for remote meetings, citing security concerns, according to Reuters opens in new tab.

Standard Chartered primarily uses the rival Blue Jeans video-conferencing platform, according to two bank staffers who spoke anonymously. Hackers are apparently offering to sell two "zero-day" exploits in Zoom to the highest bidder, Vice opens in new tab reports. Zero-days are hacks that take advantage of vulnerabilities the software maker doesn't know about, and which users have little or no defense against. Sources who told Vice about the zero-days said one exploit is for Windows and lets a remote attacker get full control of a target's computer.

The catch is that the attacker and the target have to be on the same Zoom call. This is a reaction to the discovery earlier in April that many Zoom meetings hosted by and involving U. Usernames and passwords for more than , Zoom accounts are being sold or given away in criminal marketplaces. These accounts were not compromised as the result of a Zoom data breach, but instead through credential stuffing. That's when criminals try to unlock accounts by re-using credentials from accounts compromised in previous data breaches.

It works only if an account holder uses the same password for more than one account. Researchers from IngSights discovered a set of 2, Zoom login credentials being shared in a criminal online forum. Maor told Threatpost opens in new tab it didn't seem like the credentials came from a Zoom data breach, given their relatively small number.

It's also possible that some of the credentials were the result of "credential stuffing. Information-security researchers know of several Zoom "zero-day" exploits opens in new tab , according to Vice. Zero-days are exploits for software vulnerabilities that the software maker doesn't know about and hasn't fixed, and hence has "zero days" to prepare before the exploits appear.

However, one Vice source implied that other video-conferencing solutions also had security flaws. Another source said that Zoom zero-days weren't selling for much money due to lack of demand. Criminals are trading compromised Zoom accounts on the "dark web," Yahoo News opens in new tab reported. This information apparently came from Israeli cybersecurity firm Sixgill, which specializes in monitoring underground online-criminal activity.

We weren't able to find any mention of the findings on the Sixgill website opens in new tab. Sixgill told Yahoo it had spotted compromised Zoom accounts that included meeting IDs, email addresses, passwords and host keys. Some of the accounts belonged to schools, and one each to a small business and a large healthcare provider, but most were personal. If you have a Zoom account, make sure its password isn't the same as the password for any other account you have. Researchers at Trend Micro opens in new tab discovered a version of the Zoom installer that has been bundled with cryptocurrency-mining malware , i.

The Zoom installer will put Zoom version 4. By the way, the latest Zoom client software for Windows is up to version 4. The coin-miner will ramp up your PC's central processor unit, and its graphics card if there is one, to solve mathematical problems in order to generate new units of cryptocurrency.

To avoid getting hit with this malware, make sure you're running one of the best antivirus programs, and don't click on any links in emails, social media posts or pop-up messages that promise to install Zoom on your machine.

It can't stop other people from copying and redistributing its installation software. Not only does Zoom mislead users about its "end-to-end encryption" see further down , but its seems to be flat-out, um, not telling the truth about the quality of its encryption algorithm.

Zoom says it use AES encryption to encode video and audio data traveling between Zoom servers and Zoom clients i. But researchers at the Citizen Lab opens in new tab at the University of Toronto, in a report posted April 3, found that Zoom actually uses the somewhat weaker AES algorithm. Even worse, Zoom uses an in-house implementation of encryption algorithm that preserves patterns from the original file.

It's as if someone drew a red circle on a gray wall, and then a censor painted over the red circle with a while circle. You're not seeing the original message, but the shape is still there. Yuan opens in new tab acknowledged the encryption issue but said only that "we recognize that we can do better with our encryption design" and "we expect to have more to share on this front in the coming days.

In Zoom's announcement of the upcoming April 26 desktop-software update, Zoom said it would be upgrading the encryption implementation opens in new tab to a better format for all users by May Good software has built-in anti-tampering mechanisms to make sure that applications don't run code that's been altered by a third party. Zoom has such anti-tampering mechanisms in place, which is good. But those anti-tampering mechanisms themselves are not protected from tampering, said a British computer student who calls himself " Lloyd opens in new tab " in a blog post April 3.

Needless to say, that's bad. Lloyd showed how Zoom's anti-tampering mechanism can easily be disabled, or even replaced with a malicious version that hijacks the application. If you're reading this with a working knowledge of how Windows software works, this is a pretty damning passage: "This DLL can be trivially unloaded, rendering the anti-tampering mechanism null and void.

The DLL is not pinned, meaning an attacker from a 3rd party process could simply inject a remote thread. In other words, malware already present on a computer could use Zoom's own anti-tampering mechanism to tamper with Zoom. Criminals could also create fully working versions of Zoom that have been altered to perform malicious acts.

Anyone can "bomb" a public Zoom meeting if they know the meeting number, and then use the file-share photo to post shocking images, or make annoying sounds in the audio. The FBI even warned about it opens in new tab a few days ago. The host of the Zoom meeting can mute or even kick out troublemakers, but they can come right back with new user IDs.

The best way to avoid Zoom bombing is to not share Zoom meeting numbers with anyone but the intended participants. You can also require participants to use a password to log into the meeting. On April 3, the U. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan said that "anyone who hacks into a teleconference can be charged with state or federal crimes.

Zoom automatically puts everyone sharing the same email domain into a "company" folder where they can see each other's information. Exceptions are made for people using large webmail clients such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or Outlook.

Several Dutch Zoom users who use ISP-provided email addresses suddenly found that they were in the same "company" with dozens of strangers -- and could see their email addresses, user names and user photos. STATUS: Unresolved, but an April 19 Zoom software update opens in new tab for Zoom web-interface users makes sure users on the same email domain can no longer automatically search for each other by name.

The Zoom desktop client software will get similar fixes April Several privacy experts, some working for Consumer Reports, pored over Zoom's privacy policy and found that it apparently gave Zoom the right to use Zoom users' personal data and to share it with third-party marketers.

Following a Consumer Reports opens in new tab blog post, Zoom quickly rewrote its privacy policy, stripping out the most disturbing passages and asserting that "we do not sell your personal data.

We don't know the details of Zoom's business dealings with third-party advertisers. You can find open Zoom meetings opens in new tab by rapidly cycling through possible Zoom meeting IDs, a security researcher told independent security blogger Brian Krebs.

The researcher got past Zoom's meeting-scan blocker by running queries through Tor, which randomized his IP address. It's a variation on "war driving" by randomly dialing telephone numbers to find open modems in the dial-up days. The researcher told Krebs that he could find about open Zoom meetings every hour with the tool, and that "having a password enabled on the [Zoom] meeting is the only thing that defeats it.

Two Twitter opens in new tab users opens in new tab pointed out that if you're in a Zoom meeting and use a private window in the meeting's chat app to communicate privately with another person in the meeting, that conversation will be visible in the end-of-meeting transcript the host receives. A Kurdish security researcher opens in new tab said Zoom paid him a bug bounty -- a reward for finding a serious flaw -- for finding how to hijack a Zoom account if the account holder's email address was known or guessed.

The researcher, who calls himself "s3c" but whose real name may be Yusuf Abdulla, said if he tried to log into Zoom with a Facebook account, Zoom would ask for the email address associated with that Facebook account. Then Zoom would open a new webpage notifying him that a confirmation email message had been sent to that email address.

The URL of the notification webpage would have a unique identification tag in the address bar. As an example that's much shorter than the real thing, let's say it's "zoom. When s3c received and opened the confirmation email message sent by Zoom, he clicked on the confirmation button in the body of the message. This took him to yet another webpage that confirmed his email address was now associated with a new account. So far, so good.

But then s3c noticed that the unique identification tag in the Zoom confirmation webpage's URL was identical to the first ID tag. Let's use the example "zoom.

The matching ID tags, one used before confirmation and the other after confirmation, meant that s3c could have avoided receiving the confirmation email, and clicking on the confirmation button, altogether. In fact, he could have entered ANY email address -- yours, mine or billgates gmail. Then he could have copied the ID tag from the resulting Zoom notification page and pasted the ID tag into an already existing Zoom account-confirmation page.

And because Zoom lets anyone using a company email address view all other users signed up with the same email domain, e. Zoom is fortunate that s3c is one of the good guys and didn't disclose this flaw publicly before Zoom could fix it.

But it's such a simple flaw that it's hard to imagine no one else noticed it before. Zoom has released updates for its Windows , macOS and Linux desktop client software so that meeting IDs will not display onscreen during meetings. Yuan opens in new tab said that Zoom had discovered "a potential security vulnerability with file sharing, so we disabled that feature. Until this week, participants in a Zoom meeting could share files with each other using the meeting's chat function.

Those AES encryption keys are issued to Zoom clients by Zoom servers, which is all well and good, except that the Citizen Lab opens in new tab found several Zoom servers in China issuing keys to Zoom users even when all participants in a meeting were in North America. Since Zoom servers can decrypt Zoom meetings, and Chinese authorities can compel operators of Chinese servers to hand over data, the implication is that the Chinese government might be able to see your Zoom meetings.

That's got to be bad news for the British government, which has held at least one Cabinet meeting over Zoom. Yuan opens in new tab responded to the Citizen Lab report by saying that "it is possible certain meetings were allowed to connect to systems in China, where they should not have been able to connect. We have since corrected this. Zoom advises meeting hosts to set up "waiting rooms" to avoid "Zoom bombing. The Citizen Lab said it found a serious security issue with Zoom waiting rooms opens in new tab , and advised hosts and participants to not use them for now.

The Citizen Lab is not disclosing the details yet, but has told Zoom of the flaw. In a follow-up to their initial report opens in new tab. Zoom meetings have side chats in which participants can sent text-based messages and post web links. That left Zoom chats vulnerable to attack. If a malicious Zoom bomber slipped a UNC path to a remote server that he controlled into a Zoom meeting chat, an unwitting participant could click on it. The participant's Windows computer would then try to reach out to the hacker's remote server specified in the path and automatically try to log into it using the user's Windows username and password.

The hacker could capture the password "hash" and decrypt it, giving him access to the Zoom user's Windows account. Mohamed A. Baset opens in new tab of security firm Seekurity said on Twitter that the same filepath flaw also would let a hacker insert a UNC path to a remote executable file into a Zoom meeting chatroom. If a Zoom user running Windows clicked on it, a video posted by Baset showed, the user's computer would try to load and run the software.

The victim would be prompted to authorize the software to run, which will stop some hacking attempts but not all. After Vice News exposed the practice, Zoom said it hadn't been aware of the profile-sharing and updated the iOS apps to fix this. We learned last summer that Zoom used hacker-like methods to bypass normal macOS security precautions. We thought that problem had been fixed then, along with the security flaw it created.

But a series of tweets March 30 from security researcher Felix Seele, who noticed that Zoom installed itself on his Mac without the usual user authorizations, revealed that there was still an issue. The same tricks that are being used by macOS malware. Yuan opens in new tab tweeted a friendly response. That was a swift and comprehensive reaction. Zoom just released an update for the macOS installer which completely removes the questionable "preinstall"-technique and the faked password prompt.

I must say that I am impressed. Other people could use Zoom's dodgy Mac installation methods, renowned Mac hacker Patrick Wardle opens in new tab said in a blog post March Wardle demonstrated how a local attacker -- such as a malicious human or already-installed malware -- could use Zoom's formerly magical powers of unauthorized installation to "escalate privileges" and gain total control over the machine without knowing the administrator password.

Wardle also showed that a malicious script installed into the Zoom Mac client could give any piece of malware Zoom's webcam and microphone privileges, which do not prompt the user for authorization and could turn any Mac with Zoom installed into a potential spying device. Yuan opens in new tab acknowledged Zoom's growing pains and pledged that regular development of the Zoom platform would be put on hold while the company worked to fix security and privacy issues.

Dedicated journalists and security researchers have also helped to identify pre-existing ones. To deal with these issues, Yuan wrote, Zoom would be "enacting a feature freeze, effectively immediately, and shifting all our engineering resources to focus on our biggest trust, safety, and privacy issues. Among other things, Zoom would also be "conducting a comprehensive review with third-party experts and representative users to understand and ensure the security of all of our new consumer use cases.

Zoom now requires passwords by default for most Zoom meetings, although meetings hosts can turn that feature off. Passwords are the easiest way to stop Zoom bombing.

And on April 8, former Facebook and Yahoo chief security officer Alex Stamos opens in new tab said he would be working with Zoom to improve its security and privacy. Stamos is now an adjunct professor at Stanford and is highly regarded within the information-security community. Zoom claims its meetings use "end-to-end encryption" if every participant calls in from a computer or a Zoom mobile app instead of over the phone.

But under pressure from The Intercept opens in new tab , a Zoom representative admitted that Zoom's definitions of "end-to-end" and "endpoint" are not the same as everyone else's. Every other company considers an endpoint to be a user device -- a desktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet -- but not a server. And every other company takes "end-to-end encryption" to mean that servers that relay messages from one endpoint to another can't decrypt the messages.

When you send an Apple Message from your iPhone to another iPhone user, Apple's servers help the message get from one place to another, but they can't read the content. Not so with Zoom. It can see whatever is going on in its meetings, and sometimes it may have to in order to make sure everything works properly.

Just don't believe the implication that it can't. UPDATE: In a blog post April 1, Zoom Chief Product Officer Oded Gal opens in new tab wrote that "we want to start by apologizing for the confusion we have caused by incorrectly suggesting that Zoom meetings were capable of using end-to-end encryption. Gal assured users that all data sent and received by Zoom client applications but not regular phone lines, business conferencing systems or, presumably, browser interfaces is indeed encrypted and that Zoom servers or staffers "do not decrypt it at any point before it reaches the receiving clients.

However, Gal added, "Zoom currently maintains the key management system for these systems in the cloud" but has "implemented robust and validated internal controls to prevent unauthorized access to any content that users share during meetings. The implication is that Zoom doesn't decrypt user transmissions by choice.

But because it holds the encryption keys, Zoom could if it had to, such as if it were presented with a warrant or a U.

National Security Letter essentially a secret warrant. For those worried about government snooping, Gal wrote that "Zoom has never built a mechanism to decrypt live meetings for lawful intercept purposes, nor do we have means to insert our employees or others into meetings without being reflected in the participant list.

He added that companies and other enterprises would soon be able to handle their own encryption process. We hope Zoom stops using the term "end-to-end encryption" incorrectly, but just keep in mind that you won't be getting the real thing with Zoom until it fully implements the technology it's buying with Keybase.

Privacy researcher Patrick Jackson noticed that Zoom meeting recordings saved to the host's computer generally get a certain type of file name. So he searched unprotected cloud servers to see if anyone had uploaded Zoom recordings and found more than 15, unprotected examples, according to The Washington Post opens in new tab. Jackson also found some recorded Zoom meetings on YouTube and Vimeo.

This isn't really Zoom's fault. It's up to the host to decide whether to record a meeting, and Zoom gives paying customers the option to store recordings on Zoom's own servers. It's also up to the host to decide to change the recording's file name. If you host a Zoom meeting and decide to record it, then make sure you change the default file name after you're done.

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, code monkey and video editor. He's been rooting around in the information-security space for more than 15 years at FoxNews. Tom's Guide Tom's Guide. Paul Wagenseil opens in new tab. Topics Privacy. See all comments 8. Helpful article, if a bit generous in assuming Zoom's good intentions and dedication to fixing its glaring flaws.

How about the hidden webserver that Zoom installed with its application that allowed remote access to the camera and did not uninstall with the rest of the app? Their explanation was that it was a feature, not a bug Truly disgraceful.

Also, I'm stuck on some language in the article: What does it mean that Hacker House is an "Anglo-American" cybersecurity training firm? Nobody at my office has been able to figure that one out.

Agree with you. Also, as "globalist embracing" as all of us tend and somewhat need to be in the global technology industry, we have to be cautious when it comes to security, especially at a time that a virus - COVID more properly originally named the Wuhan Virus for it's point of origin became a pandemic and is economically damaging the global economy including our industries.

Zoom disclosed in their original IPO prospectus that most of their product development personnel are based in China. We all know that our Intellectual Property is constantly under attack and being stolen by China. Here we have a company delivering the most popular video conferencing service to U. S corporations and personal users and we are expected to trust that of their developers in China are not part of the Chinese state goverment?

Sorry folks. Be wise, be safe. Choose another provider. Yuan has a lot more than some "mea culpa" interviews to do to clean up this mess!

     


Zoom privacy risks: The video chat app could be sharing more information than you think - CNET - Zoom Client for Meetings



  Jun 17,  · Let's get straight to the point. For most organisations who have a decent degree of security measures in place, yes, Zoom is secure. But wait! Before you move on to another blog on our site, there is much more to the answer than a simple yes. Let me explain. Apr 15,  · 0. Zoom, a videoconferencing service created for corporate webinars and meetings, has grown into something more amid the coronavirus outbreak. With the number of daily users exploding from 10 million to million from December to March, it has become a forum for nearly every kind of social function, including happy hours, yoga sessions. Nov 23,  · With the latest Zoom security update in place, the question now is whether the application is finally safe to use by everyone. For the most part, this video conference platform is relatively safe to download and use, as long as you are not using it to talk about sensitive matters, such as your company’s secrets and such.    

 

Zoom download safe.Zoom security issues: What's gone wrong and what's been fixed



   

We use these tools to help us improve your advertising experience such as serving advertisements on our behalf across the Internet, serving personalized ads on our website, and providing analytics services ," the policy said at the time.

But at the end of March, Zoom updated its privacy policy. In a statement following the move, Zoom said that while it wasn't changing any of its actual practices, it wanted to make its language clearer. Regarding its relationship to third-party data handlers described above, the company drew a line in the sand between its product and its website.

No data regarding user activity on the Zoom platform -- including video, audio, and chat content -- is ever provided to third parties for advertising purposes," the company said.

You should probably review your Zoom and device security settings with an eye toward minimizing permissions, and make sure any anti-tracking software on your device is up to date and running. It's also important to keep your Zoom app up to date so your privacy is always protected with the latest security patches. Luckily, Zoom recently rolled out a new automatic update feature that makes this process a whole lot more convenient.

For more, check out how to use the sneaky Zoom Escaper tool to get out of your meetings, how to combat Zoom anxiety and Zoom fatigue , and how to make your video meetings a little less weird. And, does Zoom's free plan have ads now? Your guide to a better future. Rae Hodge. Rae Hodge Senior Editor. Make sure you update your Zoom privacy settings. Read more: 20 Zoom video chat tips, tricks and hidden features Privacy experts previously expressed concerns about Zoom in , when the video-conferencing software experienced both a webcam hacking scandal , and a bug that allowed people to potentially join video meetings they hadn't been invited to , if those meetings weren't protected with a password.

Here are some of the privacy vulnerabilities in Zoom to keep an eye on. Zoom's cloud recording feature might share meeting video with people outside the call For paid subscribers, Zoom's cloud recording feature can either be a life-saver or a catastrophic faux pas waiting to happen. Audio Signature embeds a user's personal information into the audio as an inaudible watermark if they record during a meeting.

If the audio file is shared without permission, Zoom can help identify which participant recorded the meeting. Users authenticating with username and password can also enable two-factor authentication 2FA as an additional layer of security to sign in.

Zoom can map attributes to provision a user to a different group with feature controls. Zoom also offers an API call to pre-provision users from any database backend. Additionally, your organization or university can add users to your account automatically with managed domains.

Once your managed domain application is approved, all existing and new users with your email address domain will be added to your account. There are plenty of justifiable reasons to be wary of Zoom. Until last month, its privacy policy contained this statement:. Zoom has since updated its privacy policy , but the phrasing still gives the organisation room to use personal information in a variety of ways.

Crucially, that includes using third-party trackers and surveillance-based advertising — which if not selling your data is certainly sharing it. Zoom has been hurriedly addressing the myriad security flaws that have been unearthed in recent weeks, which is perhaps a sign that its developers were, at best, careless. Unfortunately, the suddenness with which employees were requested to work from home meant that organisations needed quick solutions.

Zoom has taken accountability for many of its security and privacy failings, which is always a positive step. Likewise, it has implemented several controls to improve its security posture, such as password-protecting meetings by default and adding a waiting room feature, which allows the host to select who can enter a meeting.



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