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Zoom security issues: What's gone wrong and what's been fixed | Tom's Guide 

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For many Zoom meetings, all you need to log on is an access code — bad news if the code gets into the wrong hands. In a statement emailed to Bustle, Zoom advised users in large meetings to " review their settings , confirm that only the host can share their screen, and utilize features like host mute controls and ' Waiting Room ,'" to stop Zoombombers.

It also recommended that private users keep their password protections on. We strongly condemn such behavior and we encourage users to report any incidents of this kind directly so we can take appropriate action. What's more, on March 30, The New York Times reported that the New York Attorney's General office expressed concerns that Zoom's built-in security measures might not be able to handle the massive spike in users, not to mention the sensitive data being shared across its network.

That same day, users filed a class action lawsuit against Zoom for "unauthorized disclosure of its users' personal information to third parties, including Facebook. For that, I am deeply sorry, and I want to share what we are doing about it. Going forward, the company will have third party experts review its privacy policies, and prepare an official transparency report for users. Although Zoom's software was updated and removed any data connections to Facebook , the lawsuit is ongoing.

Let me explain. The first question you should ask is what do you do? Are you in the arms manufacturing business for a special government unit? Are you discussing National Security Topics or extremely sensitive data that, if intercepted, could actually impact the country's security?

You get the point. If your topic of discussion is extremely sensitive and you don't want any interception then you should NOT be using Zoom. As a matter of fact, you should not be using any web conferencing solutions available. We may write another blog for suitable alternatives. Don't forget, most modern 'smart' devices are listening to your every word and in the case of Samsung, for example, they were absolutely open about it.

Continuing from the above section, the simple answer to any question, not just "Is Zoom secure? Here are some questions you should ask before you use any software:. No, Zoom is a US-based company. He also added that he's been an American citizen since , living in the US since Yes, they do and I can assure you well, let's hope I am right that someone somewhere must have done a contextual risk assessment based on what was going to be discussed, the sensitivity of the topics and more, before allowing them to join a Zoom meeting room.

At best, it's very annoying. At worst, it compromises your data, especially if you are on a confidential business call. The solution is simple—set a password for every Zoom call you participate in.

Zoom has also introduced a way to suspend participants' activities, meaning you can boot imposters out of your call. Read our comprehensive guide to Zoom-bombing to learn more. If you want to use Zoom on a desktop machine, you have two options: the desktop app or the web app. You should always use the web browser version; this gets new security enhancements much faster than the desktop app. And aside from the updates, the web version is still more secure.

That's because it lives in a browser's sandbox, meaning it has far fewer permissions and a reduced ability to cause issues across your entire operating system. If you'd prefer to use an app for Zoom, consider Skype for Business. It has a secure Zoom integration. At the start of , Zoom heavily advertised its end-to-end encryption as a key feature. In theory, that means that all communications between you and the other people in your chat would only be visible to those parties; nobody could decrypt them.

The claims were quickly shown to be false. Data was encrypted, but only between you and the Zoom servers. You don't need to install any software on your desktop to run Zoom. Zoom is a prime target for foreign spies, especially Chinese intelligence operatives, the Department of Homeland Security has warned U. Foreign spies would be interested in any internet-based communications medium that saw such a steep increase in growth.

But the DHS report singled out China as a likely meddler in Zoom security because Zoom has a substantial number of staffers in that country. However, Zoom in the past week has given paid meeting hosts the option of avoiding Zoom servers in specific regions, including China and North America. Unpaid Zoom hosts will by default use only servers in their home regions. A new report from Mozilla , the non-profit maker of the Firefox web browser, says that Zoom's privacy and security policies and practices are better than those of Apple FaceTime.

FaceTime got only 4. A new Zoom phishing scam is sure to get the attention of anyone working from home during the coronavirus lockdown. It seems to come from your employer's HR department, and invites you to join a Zoom meeting starting in a few minutes to discuss possible termination of your employment. If you click on the link in the email to join the meeting, you're taken to a very real-looking Zoom login page.

It's fake. If you enter your credentials, then the crooks can take over your Zoom account. Zoom has finally updated its meeting-client software to version 5.

Here's our guide on how to update to Zoom 5. The update is not yet available for iOS, as Apple has to vet the software before the new version of the app can be pushed out. We also couldn't see in the Google Play app store as of Monday afternoon Eastern time April 27 , but odds are it will appear soon. No other company may have benefited more from the stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus crisis.

To put that in perspective, daily usage peaked at million people per day in March, the company said on April 1 opens in new tab. In December , Zoom usage peaked at 10 million daily users. The new version will include many of the security fixes we've recently seen for the Zoom web interface, including the abilities to kick out Zoom bombers from meetings, make sure meeting data doesn't go through China, and put everyone waiting for a meeting in a "waiting room.

We checked the Zoom changelogs opens in new tab and discovered that the update won't be available until Sunday, April Cisco Talos researchers said Zoom's meeting chat function made it too easy for outsiders to find all Zoom users in an particular organization. If you had a valid Zoom account, Cisco Talos explained in a blog post opens in new tab , you could pretend that you worked at any organization and get the full names and chat IDs of every registered Zoom user whose email address used that organization's email domain.

You would not have to verify that you worked there, and you wouldn't even need to be in a Zoom meeting to get the information. That information "could be leveraged to disclose further contact information including the user's email address, phone number and any other information that is present in their vCard," or digital business card, Cisco Talos wrote.

In a blog post opens in new tab April 20, Zoom said the option of excluding certain countries from call routing was now live. This will let Zoom meeting administrators avoid having meeting data routed through Zoom servers in China, the U.

New updates to the Zoom platform opens in new tab for the web interface rolled out April 19 include masking some participant personal information, such as email addresses or phone numbers, during meetings. Another change is that users who share the same email domain will no longer be able to search for each other by name. The New York Times opens in new tab reported that Dropbox executives were so concerned about security flaws in Zoom that in Dropbox created its own secret bug-bounty program for Zoom flaws.

In other words, Dropbox would pay hackers for security vulnerabilities they found in Zoom. Dropbox staffers used Zoom regularly, and Dropbox was an investor in Zoom. The Times reported that Dropbox would confirm the flaws, then pass them along to Zoom so that Zoom could fix them.

Zoom-meeting video recordings saved on Zoom's cloud servers can be easily discovered and often viewed, a security researcher told Cnet opens in new tab.

Phil Guimond opens in new tab noticed that online recordings of Zoom meetings have a predictable URL structure and are thus easy to find. The Washington Post reported last week on a similar issue with Zoom recordings that had been uploaded by users to third-party cloud servers. In those cases, the file names of meeting recordings followed a predictable pattern. Until Zoom pushed out a series of updates opens in new tab this past Tuesday, Zoom meeting recordings were not required to be password-protected.

Guimond built a simple tool that automatically searches for Zoom meeting recordings and tries to open them. If a meeting has a password, his tool tries to brute-force access by running through millions of possible passwords.

If a meeting recording is viewable, so is the Zoom meeting ID, and the attacker might be able to access future recurring meetings. But, Guimond said, the URL pattern is still the same, and attackers could still try to open each generated result manually. Zoom announced it was hiring Luta Security opens in new tab , a consulting firm headed by Katie Moussouris, to revamp Zoom's "bug bounty" program, which pays hackers to find software flaws. Moussouris set up the first bug-bounty programs at Microsoft and the Pentagon.

In her own blog post opens in new tab , she announced that Zoom was bringing in other well-regarded information-security firms and researchers to improve its security.

In its weekly webinar, according to ZDNet opens in new tab , Zoom also said it would also let meeting hosts report abusive users, and newly hired security consultant Alex Stamos said Zoom would be switching to a more robust encryption standard after Zoom's existing encryption was found to be lacking. In other news, a congressman has complained that a congressional briefing held over Zoom on April 3 was "zoom-bombed" opens in new tab at least three times.

The head of Standard Chartered, a London-based multinational bank, has warned employees to not use Zoom or Google Hangouts for remote meetings, citing security concerns, according to Reuters opens in new tab. Standard Chartered primarily uses the rival Blue Jeans video-conferencing platform, according to two bank staffers who spoke anonymously.

Hackers are apparently offering to sell two "zero-day" exploits in Zoom to the highest bidder, Vice opens in new tab reports. Zero-days are hacks that take advantage of vulnerabilities the software maker doesn't know about, and which users have little or no defense against.

Sources who told Vice about the zero-days said one exploit is for Windows and lets a remote attacker get full control of a target's computer. The catch is that the attacker and the target have to be on the same Zoom call. This is a reaction to the discovery earlier in April that many Zoom meetings hosted by and involving U. Usernames and passwords for more than , Zoom accounts are being sold or given away in criminal marketplaces. These accounts were not compromised as the result of a Zoom data breach, but instead through credential stuffing.

That's when criminals try to unlock accounts by re-using credentials from accounts compromised in previous data breaches. It works only if an account holder uses the same password for more than one account. Researchers from IngSights discovered a set of 2, Zoom login credentials being shared in a criminal online forum.

Maor told Threatpost opens in new tab it didn't seem like the credentials came from a Zoom data breach, given their relatively small number. It's also possible that some of the credentials were the result of "credential stuffing. Information-security researchers know of several Zoom "zero-day" exploits opens in new tab , according to Vice. Zero-days are exploits for software vulnerabilities that the software maker doesn't know about and hasn't fixed, and hence has "zero days" to prepare before the exploits appear.

However, one Vice source implied that other video-conferencing solutions also had security flaws. Another source said that Zoom zero-days weren't selling for much money due to lack of demand.

Criminals are trading compromised Zoom accounts on the "dark web," Yahoo News opens in new tab reported. This information apparently came from Israeli cybersecurity firm Sixgill, which specializes in monitoring underground online-criminal activity.

We weren't able to find any mention of the findings on the Sixgill website opens in new tab. Sixgill told Yahoo it had spotted compromised Zoom accounts that included meeting IDs, email addresses, passwords and host keys.

Some of the accounts belonged to schools, and one each to a small business and a large healthcare provider, but most were personal. If you have a Zoom account, make sure its password isn't the same as the password for any other account you have. Researchers at Trend Micro opens in new tab discovered a version of the Zoom installer that has been bundled with cryptocurrency-mining malware , i.

The Zoom installer will put Zoom version 4. By the way, the latest Zoom client software for Windows is up to version 4. The coin-miner will ramp up your PC's central processor unit, and its graphics card if there is one, to solve mathematical problems in order to generate new units of cryptocurrency.

To avoid getting hit with this malware, make sure you're running one of the best antivirus programs, and don't click on any links in emails, social media posts or pop-up messages that promise to install Zoom on your machine.

It can't stop other people from copying and redistributing its installation software. Not only does Zoom mislead users about its "end-to-end encryption" see further down , but its seems to be flat-out, um, not telling the truth about the quality of its encryption algorithm.

Zoom says it use AES encryption to encode video and audio data traveling between Zoom servers and Zoom clients i. But researchers at the Citizen Lab opens in new tab at the University of Toronto, in a report posted April 3, found that Zoom actually uses the somewhat weaker AES algorithm. Even worse, Zoom uses an in-house implementation of encryption algorithm that preserves patterns from the original file.

It's as if someone drew a red circle on a gray wall, and then a censor painted over the red circle with a while circle.

You're not seeing the original message, but the shape is still there. Yuan opens in new tab acknowledged the encryption issue but said only that "we recognize that we can do better with our encryption design" and "we expect to have more to share on this front in the coming days.

In Zoom's announcement of the upcoming April 26 desktop-software update, Zoom said it would be upgrading the encryption implementation opens in new tab to a better format for all users by May Good software has built-in anti-tampering mechanisms to make sure that applications don't run code that's been altered by a third party.

Zoom has such anti-tampering mechanisms in place, which is good. But those anti-tampering mechanisms themselves are not protected from tampering, said a British computer student who calls himself " Lloyd opens in new tab " in a blog post April 3.

Needless to say, that's bad. Lloyd showed how Zoom's anti-tampering mechanism can easily be disabled, or even replaced with a malicious version that hijacks the application. If you're reading this with a working knowledge of how Windows software works, this is a pretty damning passage: "This DLL can be trivially unloaded, rendering the anti-tampering mechanism null and void. The DLL is not pinned, meaning an attacker from a 3rd party process could simply inject a remote thread.

In other words, malware already present on a computer could use Zoom's own anti-tampering mechanism to tamper with Zoom. Criminals could also create fully working versions of Zoom that have been altered to perform malicious acts. Anyone can "bomb" a public Zoom meeting if they know the meeting number, and then use the file-share photo to post shocking images, or make annoying sounds in the audio. The FBI even warned about it opens in new tab a few days ago.

The host of the Zoom meeting can mute or even kick out troublemakers, but they can come right back with new user IDs. The best way to avoid Zoom bombing is to not share Zoom meeting numbers with anyone but the intended participants.

You can also require participants to use a password to log into the meeting. On April 3, the U. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan said that "anyone who hacks into a teleconference can be charged with state or federal crimes. Zoom automatically puts everyone sharing the same email domain into a "company" folder where they can see each other's information.

Exceptions are made for people using large webmail clients such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or Outlook. Several Dutch Zoom users who use ISP-provided email addresses suddenly found that they were in the same "company" with dozens of strangers -- and could see their email addresses, user names and user photos.

STATUS: Unresolved, but an April 19 Zoom software update opens in new tab for Zoom web-interface users makes sure users on the same email domain can no longer automatically search for each other by name.

The Zoom desktop client software will get similar fixes April Several privacy experts, some working for Consumer Reports, pored over Zoom's privacy policy and found that it apparently gave Zoom the right to use Zoom users' personal data and to share it with third-party marketers. Following a Consumer Reports opens in new tab blog post, Zoom quickly rewrote its privacy policy, stripping out the most disturbing passages and asserting that "we do not sell your personal data.

We don't know the details of Zoom's business dealings with third-party advertisers.

     

Safe to download zoom -

 

Most recently, the Federal Trade Commission announced that Zoom "misled users" and "engaged in a series of deceptive and unfair practices" regarding its own security. The decision, issued by U.

It was agreed that Zoom would have yearly internal security reviews and external security reviews every other year and must implement a vulnerability management program.

Another stipulation was that Zoom offers customers multi-factor authentication , which it has already implemented. Certainly, a big step in the right direction. But for social get-togethers and workplace meetings that stick to routine business , Zoom is safe enough. Of course, there are a few security best practices to follow when using the platform to keep you extra secure.

Back in April last year, I wrote an article about how to stay safe on Zoom that included tips on how to set up your account and how to schedule, share and host your meetings safely. Since then, Zoom has faced more criticism over its security, so what else can you do to keep your business safe? Treat Zoom like any other account and apply the basics to protect your account.

Never use the same password twice, if Zoom were to suffer a breach that password could be used to try and access other corporate accounts. Be sure to use a strong and unique password, if you have a password manager, they should generate one for you. If you do, anyone who knows your PMI can join any meeting you host, so share this information wisely.

As mentioned above, Zoom phishing campaigns are a popular way for bad actors to steal your account details. Use the tips above to determine whether the email is legit. If in doubt, get in touch with your IT department for advice. Setting a unique and strong password for each meeting remains the best way of ensuring that only the people you want in your meeting can attend. Last year, Zoom made the sensible move to turn password protection on by default.

But just to be clear, your zoom account password and meeting password are not the same — they are two different passwords. You should also avoid reusing meeting passwords. While you may find that the quality of your video call is better on the app, the web browser version gets security enhancements much faster. And aside from the updates, the web version is still more secure. That's because it lives in a browser's sandbox, meaning it has far fewer permissions and a reduced ability to cause issues across your entire operating system.

When you click a link to join a meeting, your browser will open a new tab and prompt you to use or install the Zoom desktop software. But in the fine print, there's a link to "join from your browser. So, there you have it; providing you take the right preventative measures and only use Zoom where it is appropriate, you should be okay.

Netitude has been delivering secure, reliable and productive IT for business growth, since Don't forget, most modern 'smart' devices are listening to your every word and in the case of Samsung, for example, they were absolutely open about it. Continuing from the above section, the simple answer to any question, not just "Is Zoom secure? Here are some questions you should ask before you use any software:. No, Zoom is a US-based company. He also added that he's been an American citizen since , living in the US since Yes, they do and I can assure you well, let's hope I am right that someone somewhere must have done a contextual risk assessment based on what was going to be discussed, the sensitivity of the topics and more, before allowing them to join a Zoom meeting room.

In summary, the data stays in the US only. There is something similar by Microsoft for Microsoft Teams. Ensure you do your research.

They are either PDFs or websites. At Cyber Management Alliance, we regularly conduct Cyber Crisis Tabletop Exercises for clients including banks, councils, sporting organisations, pharmaceuticals and more. Before the Covid pandemic, we conducted most tabletop exercises at the customer site or in special offsite locations. Since the beginning of March , we switched all cyber tabletop sessions to remote and started using Zoom. At that time it was the only one that offered breakout room functionality, a feature we rely on for successful tabletop and incipient response testing exercises.

For the record, we have also used MS Teams and Google Meet for conducting crisis tabletop exercises without too many issues. Consequently, most, if not all staff, are out of office, at home or travelling. Pandemic or not, testing of Incident Response Plans through a virtual conference room only makes sense. In our opinion, Zoom is pretty seamless, it rarely has technical glitches if everyone has a decent internet connection, you can share screens, put people in waiting rooms or breakout rooms, making it ideal for managing a cyber crisis, especially in the current business environment.

Better Alternatives to Zoom? Yes, there are too many to list here. Here are some others that we use regularly. Like all software applications there will be known vulnerabilities and there will be Zero day exploits for each.

Please read the UK and US government guidance on how to ensure you better secure your video conferencing connections including, you guessed it, using common sense.

You can also consider our Breach Readiness Assessment to evaluate if your business is prepared to deal with a cyber-attack. Show comments. Contact us. Date: 17 June Like this article?