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By – Sneha Khandelwal
As people work from home amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, cases of cyberattacks, hacking and even ransomware have been on the rise. One such main concern is the Zoom video-conferencing app. It has been facing several privacy and security concerns resulted in severe criticism and cyber threats globally. Recently, Zoom came under the Indian government’s radar due to growing security concerns around it.
(This story originally appeared in TOI on Apr 10, 2020)
A senior corporate executive was on a video conference call with his top management using the popular Zoom app while working from home due to the coronavirus lockdown. Minutes after the meeting started, the screen was hacked, and pornographic content started playing across the screens of those who were on the call, prompting them to abruptly terminate the call.
Zoom is no stranger to privacy attacks. Recent cases of Zoom bombing, which the company has acknowledged in its blog, and a bug in the iOS app that sends user data to Facebook have mired the popular video-conferencing app in controversy. CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) has further cautioned users against the cyber vulnerability of Zoom, saying that “the unguarded usage of the digital application can be vulnerable to cyber attacks, including leakage of sensitive office information to cybercriminals.”
Security research has discovered three bugs or flaws in the Zoom App.
- It allows the hackers to steal windows password.
- The hackers gains physical access to a Mac device by taking control of their webcam and a micro-phone.
- It allowed a cyber crook to compromise the audio and video feeds of a Zoom- like intercepting the feed with some X rated stuff and such.
Some important infomation about this app:-
Note 1- In Feb this year, Zoom had a daily download stats of just 17,000 which zoomed to 2.5 million by the end of March 2020.
Note 2- Zoom happens to be a San Jose based company that offers digital video conferencing services such as online meetings, chats, and mobile collaboration.
Note 3- This 2011 started company hit the milestone of 40 million users in late 2015 with a business subscription list of 65,000.
Note 4– To date, the company is reported to have hosted over 1 billion meeting minutes.
Note 5- The Company was sued by the US Federal Court for illegally leaking personal data of its users to companies like Facebook and Google in March 2020.
In response, Zoom’s founder and CEO Eric Yuan said “We did not design the product with the foresight that, in a matter of weeks, every person in the world would suddenly be working, studying, and socialising from home,”
What CERT-India Recommends
The agency recommended a few safety measures for users to enhance the security of their Zoom meetings.
- Keep the Zoom software patched and up-to-date
- Set strong, difficult-to-guess, and unique passwords for each meeting
- Enable ‘waiting room’ feature for better control over all participants
- Lock the meeting session once all your attendees have joined
The Cyber Coordination Centre (CyCord), under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in India, recently released a detailed advisory on the usage of the app.The advisory asked government representatives to avoid using the Zoom platform for official purposes, citing it as unsafe. The advisory also listed certain guidelines for safe usage of Zoom by private entities and individuals for unofficial purposes. These include:
- Set new user ID and password for each meeting
- Enable the meeting room
- Disable join before host
- Allow screen sharing by host only
- Disable allow removed participants to re-join
- Restrict or disable file transfer option
- Lock meeting once all attendees have joined
- Restrict the recording feature
- End meeting (and not just leave, if you are the administrator)
In response to the Indian government’s advisory, Zoom authorities stated that the company is discussing potential ways to regain the confidence of Indian users on its platform. It also plans to bring the end-to-end encryption on the platform for video meetings, which is only applicable to the textual conversations so far.
Recently, Germany and Taiwan have banned the use of Zoom in their nations. The New York City officials stated that schools in the City will no longer be allowed to use Zoom for online teaching. Also, the Australia’s Defense Force and its MPs are barred from using Zoom services.
India is also being asked to avoid using Zoom for official purposes.
we’ve learned so far from the security research that there are three bugs or flaws in the Zoom App.
It allows the hackers to steal windows password.
The hackers gains physical access to a Mac device by taking control of their webcam and a micro-phone.
It allowed a cyber crook to compromise the audio and video feeds of a Zoom- like intercepting the feed with some X rated stuff and such.
We can be safe if we take precautions and not share our details
carelessly with others
Through this article we got to know about zoom app, matter of concern and no longer should be used, due to privacy hacks.
As is evident from the various cyber crimes and attacks taking place at our privacy it’s better we take up some measures and steps to safeguard our data .
1) we shouldn’t visit sites that we don’t trust
2) shouldn’t submit personal details to a shady site as it can sell it to sites which would misuse them for gains which could out our information and privacy in danger
We should be aware of things before going on with them
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it is new and related topic to the the cyber law as it is related to the privacy law.
Nicely written but the zoom app article needs to be shared more as there are many ppl out there still using the app unaware of the fact…..
In india what people must be concerned about their data and privacy of course but its not less true that indians dont give a dime to it so i think this article flawlessly outshines the hazards and risks these type of apps can pose and can surely make a person more cautious the next time.
An informative article, just in the time when it was needed the most. Zoom or yet alone any other third party app that organisations or educational institutions choose for carrying out online classrooms or meetings, may be suitable for short term but keeping in mind the conditions of the pandemic at the moment, we would have to work on streamlining online education in a secure manner. Educational institutions should work on creating a safe portal for online education, which is accessible only to the students, like some open universities and distance learning courses are. Similarly, IT companies should work on redefining the goals of online meeting and attempt to conduct it on a safer platform, testing it beforehand to avoid any loss in future.
Well written article as i have also studied a research paper and have learned that there are many flaws and bugs in the Zoom App.
It allows the hackers to steal windows password.
The hackers gains physical access to individual device and gadgets by taking control of their webcam and a micro-phone.
It allows the hacker for intercepting the feed with some X rated stuff and such and then further cancelling the meeting and making private data in the danger.
So in my suggestion the topic mentioned is the issue of concern and the using of apps like these can be avoided.
In this situation of lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic zoom app is highly using for every kind of meeting and despite of derive benefits from it becomes a platform for cyber crime.
The article is explanatory as well as cautionary. Due to “work from home” thing, there is a drastic increase in the use of Zoom Software for video conferencing and online classes by schools and universities. The author has made a wonderful attempt in explaining the precautions which should be taken while using this software, however with the advent of other softwares as well the use of Zoom should be avoided as much as possible.
Interested article as people are using zoomapp for the purpose of working from home and it can cause a lot of harm to the data privacy.
The article lacks proper introduction, conclusion, personal views and suggestions.
Video conferencing sessions are effectively in use all over the world, whether be it for personal use or professional use. And during this lockdown period, the use of such apps have increased rapidly. The mostly used app for video conferencing is ” Zoom” App. Work from home and learn from home has become easy now as Online teaching classrooms, corporate meetings, professional discussions and a lot more can be done through this aap ,But with these positive sides, this app is really dangerous for the users private data and this article has given us enough information about the same. Really a great article.
The article is not well organized (with respect to introduction, body, conclusion). However, it has successfully covered the topic.
As video conferencing has became a need of the hour because of covid pandemic. People are using such apps which causes a big threat to privacy. This article clearly explains the situation and provides the steps to prevent such crimes. It may be not be well written but is informative for the readers.
Nice article.
Nice article as i have also studied a research paper and have learned that there are many flaws and bugs in the Zoom App.Video conferencing has become a need of most of us because of global pandemic COVID-19 and we are using it this article clearly explains the situation and provides the steps to prevent such crimes bit it isn’t written properly it lacks somewhere in introduction and conclusion part.
Zoom was held by government as a non reliable app and should be used with preventive measures.