As millions of people are confined within their homes owing to rapidly spreading COVID-19, they are adopting several new ways of interacting, learning and working. And Zoom, a video-conferencing application, seems to be doing better than other social apps. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, this application is having a boom time as it is easy to use, reliable and incredibly convenient. According to Apptopia, daily downloads of this app increased to nearly 2.5 million by late March.
Its free version allows users to add up to 100 participants in a call. Also, users can enjoy unlimited one-to-one meetings and 40 minutes of group callings. The unprecedented popularity of this application is inevitable as many companies have asked their employees to work from home owing to ongoing coronavirus crisis.
However, as the app’s popularity has grown, experts have been repeatedly pointing out to security and privacy concerns. The Zoom app has an issue with its ‘Company Directory’ setting that may have leaked users’ e-mails and photos. According to some reports, Zoom meetings are not end-to-end encrypted, despite the company’s claims. Recently, the Broadcast Audience Research Council and Nielsen, for example, had to cancel a Zoom video call as the miscreants defaced all the slides and played random videos. There were more than 600 participants logged in to the conference. This unfortunate incident exposes the vulnerabilities of this growing platform.
SpaceX has banned its employees from using the app Zoom, citing “significant privacy and security concerns.” Apart from this, it is also being banned by the New York City Department of Education over privacy concerns.
In addition to this, India’s nodal cyber security agency has also warned users that this application is prone to cyberattacks. “Insecure usage of the platform may allow cyber criminals to access sensitive information such as meeting details and conversations,” Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) said in an advisory.