Zoom Facing Security Issues

Zoom, the platform that many schools and companies are using to continue business as usual throughout this time of social distancing is facing unforeseen issues. The main issue that they are facing is what they are calling Zoombombing.

Zoom was initially set up for not this much use, and for the use of companies to “zoom” in people who could not be at a meeting. So essentially a much lower volume of use with much less people in the meetings.

When companies and schools moved to remote learning and work from home, this greatly increased Zooms user volume which they were not prepared for. This lead to a whole host of cybersecurity issues. Two of the largest issues thus far have been people hacking into Zoom meetings and harassing participants. Additionally, there are reports that the Zoom iPhone app has leaked data to Facebook and that certain users have been able to access other users’ LinkedIn data.

Zoom is seemingly doing everything in their power to keep up with all of thee changes in their business as well as the current world. This has caused them to hire the former chief security officer of Facebook as well as for an advisory board of some of the most established people within cybersecurity to fix the mistakes that have been made and prevent further issues.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/business/zoom-video-privacy-security-coronavirus.html

3 thoughts on “Zoom Facing Security Issues

  1. I’m sure that Zoom never anticipated that their platform would be as widespread and prevalent as it is right now. I had never heard of or used Zoom prior to COVID-19, but like most others I am now using it almost daily. Because of this, I can understand why there might be some faults in the security of the application, and I agree with you in that everything that I’ve read makes it seem that they are working hard to make sure Zoom is as secure as possible. I think this issue is more relevant to governmental agencies or the higher ups in corporate of major companies sharing confidential information during a Zoom meeting. That is actual important information that someone not involved could theoretically hack and receive. I don’t think that we have anything to be worried about using Zoom for classes and informal meetings, interviews, or hangouts. The article from Zoom below shows the progress they are making in increasing cybersecurity during this unforeseen time.

    https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/04/01/a-message-to-our-users/

  2. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, I had never heard of the online platform of Zoom at all. When I heard that as a university we were going onto Zoom I really had no idea what anyone was talking about because I only have heard of things similar such as Skype and Oovoo. Over the past few weeks of this online lifestyle I have gotten to know the in’s and out’s of what Zoom has to offer from using it to listen to lectures, to continuing meeting schedules with clubs, and even using it to talk to my friends and family. Throughout my time of using Zoom thus far I have not had any serious issues with the platform which I have been pleasantly surprised about. I have found out from my friends and professors that this is not the case for everyone however. I have had friends that have told me that they have been forced to re-download the platform multiple times because their accounts have been hacked and were forced to change all of their information. I have also had professors explain the difficulty of having to make sure their classes are private and that no one is taking over the host position. These professors explained that people would go on before the class started and added friends/peers that were not even in the class, just to mess around in the chat room the whole time.

    Like all social media platforms and online sites, there is always going to be issues in terms of security and privacy because nothing is ever one hundred percent fool proof. The article I have linked down below mentions that the Zoom platform is now starting to face lawsuits and is losing the amount of people using the platform due to certain company’s and schools banning it. The article talks about hoe there are multiple lawsuits being filed across the country. One of the lawsuits is very interesting in that it talks about how Zoom is collecting user data and sharing it with other social media platforms such as Facebook. I feel like this could be very frightening to people because your data could be used and sold to someone else without even knowing. This seems like a very big issue in terms of privacy because you are not giving the site your permission and now more than one site has information on you. The article concluded by talking about the U.S Senate has become involved in the Zoom situation, where it is explained that they are trying to sway people away from using the application. Foreign ministries and other governments are trying to get people to stick to sites like Google. I am very curious to see in the future if more lawsuits will form and how this impacts the Zoom application as a whole.

    https://www.computerworld.com/article/3537193/zoom-hit-by-investor-lawsuit-as-security-privacy-concerns-mount.html

  3. Prior to the coronavirus, I had never used Zoom. However, in the last few weeks I have used Zoom multiple time a day for all different types of things such as class, meeting, and just phone calls with friends. I personally have not had any trouble with security or safety on Zoom, but I know of many people who have. I think that the fact that so many people, from college students to business professionals to families trying to stay in touch, are using this app, it has become a target for people to hack or “zoombombing.” I also think that zoom is struggling because they have never had near this many people using the program at once.
    Because of all these issues with cybersecurity that have been reported on Zoom, people are starting to doubt if it is even safe to use or not. The article I have attached below discusses if people should trust Zoom or not. Zoom has said that they have identified and fixed the areas where most of their issues were coming from. They apologized for the technical difficulties and said that when they created the program ,they never intended most of the citizens of the world to be relying on it. One of the biggest changes they have made is requiring a password to enter Zoom meetings. This will stop the issue of “Zoombombing,” which is when people who are not supposed to be in the Zoom meeting join and cause trouble. Taiwan has gone as far as to ban the use of Zoom because they think that China will hack it and gain important information. Google has also stopped using it because they say that it does not meet their security standards. The article concludes by saying that although these large organizations are weary of the program, the average person who is using it for school work or business meetings probably doesn’t have to worry about safety.

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/the-zoom-app-has-a-lot-of-security-problems.html

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