As more and more corporate companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are banning the usage of Zoom App in their work environments, followed by governments across the world – here are 14 reasons which are making Zoom video calling app unsafe-
1.) There is a high probability of information leak while in a video call through the ‘recording’ feature if the user doesn’t know how to use the Zoom app safely.
2.) Speculations are ripe in the media that Eric Yuan, the founder of the American cloud-based Zoom Video Communications app was born in China and so he might be working for the Chinese government and hosting the Zoom app servers in China. However, this topic is proving controversial and is only buzzing on Tech forums and there is no evidence against Yuan yet.
3.) In March 2020, New York State Attorney General Letitia James launched a probe on the privacy and security practices employed in Zoom app data centers. And after some preliminary inquiries, the app was banned by the New York City Schools by the New York City Department of Education. Yuan admitted in April 2020, that his cloud-based video conference app did exhibit some issues as it was designed for large IT companies which had 24×7 IT support.
4.) No end to end encryption seen in Zoom App which the company has otherwise denied
5.) Zoom app uses LinkedIn data surreptitiously allowing participants to access LinkedIn profile data about other participants without their knowledge.
6.) In Apil 2020 an independent security researcher found 7 vulnerabilities in the app out of which 3 were critical allowing access to hackers to access the camera and microphone of Zoom Video Communication app users.
7.) Hackers can hack the app anytime as recently a meeting by BARC was stopped abruptly due to a con-call hacking.
8.) Countries like the US, Australia, India, and Germany have banned the usage of Zoom as it allows cyber crooks to access sensitive information.
9.) Security researchers found that those authorized to attend meetings on Zoom cloud meeting app were able to carry out malicious activity
10.) The research found that uninvited guests can gate-crash a con-call on Zoom video app and the technique was technologically named as “Zoombombing”
11.) Some researchers from Singapore have discovered that Zoom meeting app loaded devices can be used in Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks.
12) In April 2020 over 500,000 emails and password of Zoom app users were leaked and dumped on the dark web for sale due to a flaw in ‘Company Directory’
13) On April 15th,2020 a Motherboard claimed that Zoom’s Zero-day vulnerabilities were available on sale for $500,000 and hackers can easily run these exploits on machines running on Microsoft Windows and Mac OSes.
14.) Avoid clicking on links sent through emails with subject lines like Missed Zoom Meeting, Zoom Account, Meeting canceled- could we do a zoom call.
