Zoom Video calls are insecure, popular tool accused of attacking privacy
Zoom is one of the most popular video calling apps and is potentially at the top of the list. It is so famous that it is even used to connect people to television after lockdowns applied in some countries, since guests cannot be on sets in person; even hundreds or thousands of schools are using it to teach distance education. Indeed, and because of these closures, the application has risen like foam to 70% of use since many must continue to work from home and want to continue in contact with their family and friends.
But now she is accused of not being safe. Concretely, the online tool, which is characterized by its free access if the online conferences have less than 100 participants, has been accused of lying: the conversations made via the service are not encrypted. In fact, they are, but there is a back door , promising allows the app to intercept these conversations. Indeed, the conferences are not end-to-end encrypted, but only encrypted so that they are not intercepted by people outside Zoom.
You are interested | Zoom: what it is and how to use the most popular meeting and video conferencing app around
Zoom is not secure and has security concerns everywhere
In addition, and supposedly due to an oversight in its programming in the application - which thanks to the coronavirus has achieved even greater growth than during the whole of 2019 - the data of its users has been sent to Facebook ; Zoom would in fact have been paid for this data. This fact prompted the New York attorney's office to decide to investigate the police. Additionally, in January, a conference ID code was discovered that allowed other completely unknown people to enter completely random groups, producing altercations within conferences.
As a result, hundreds of schools that used this app to teach during quarantines have decided not to use it anymore; same the United States military has banned its use for official purposes. And not just the US military, but even private companies like SpaxX.
One of the most notorious problems with these access codes has been when a naked man walked into a lecture in a classroom away from a Norwegian school. If the conferences are not password protected, anyone can try to re-enter invitation codes and thus access outside conferences that are not password protected.
You are interested | The 7 best apps to make group video calls for free
Zoom Video Communications Inc, on the other hand, claims to have access controls robust and validated to prevent unauthorized access, in addition to pretend they don't sell their users' data, taking their safety seriously.
But, despite the company's efforts to deny that there is a safety issue, even the fbi recommended not to use the app due to lack of security, asking the population not to use it in particular to organize conferences in schools given the many incidents that have already taken place.
