WHAT IS A ZOOM APP
Founder: Eric S. Yuan
It allows you to virtually interact with
co-workers or employers interact with co-workers or employers when in-person
meetings aren’t possible. This makes telecommunicating seem much more human, as
it helps you feel connected. As
COVID-19 is spreading its web rapidly across the whole world among every humanity,
Zoom has become one of the major weapon for small-, medium-, and large-sized organizations
that want to keep in touch and continue their daily workflows with minimal
disruption.
With increase in demand of ZOOM, you must have heared the
following phrases: Zoom meeting and Zoom
Room. By Zoom Meeting it is referred to a video conferencing meeting that’s
hosted using Zoom. You can participate in these meetings via a webcam or phone.
Meanwhile, a zoom room is the physical gadget system that lets organizations
schedule and launch zoom meetings from their conference rooms making it easier
for institutions to follow the concept of “WORK FROM HOME” possible in this
pandemic environment.
Government raises red
flag over video conference app Zoom,
calls it unsafe.
Home ministry’s advisory comes at a time when the platform
has gained prominence. Centre also asks all ministers and staff to refrain from
conducting meetings on third-party apps such as Zoom.
NEW DELHI: The Union Home Ministry has red alarm
bells, flagging video conferencing software Zoom as unsafe and vulnerable
to cyber-crimes.
The ministry’s notification comes at a time when the
platform has gained prominence with most ind
ustries now working from home in
the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, globally. At the same time, with the privacy
coming into question in the case of Zoom, the center has also asked all its
ministers and staff to refrain from the conducting any meetings on third party
applications.
The MHA in its
latest advisory through its Cyber
Coordination Centre (CyCord) on Thursday has red-flagged the video
conferencing facility as “unsafe”, days after India’s Computer Emergency Response (CERT-IN) had raised concerns
over potential cyber-attacks through Zoom.
In an order issued earlier on 30 March, CERT-IN said
the application was vulnerable to
cyber-attacks, including leakage of sensitive information.
The reason behind such insecurity:
In
case of Zoom, a Motherboard analysis
revealed that its iOS app sends data to
social networking website Facebook automatically without the user’s consent
even if the user doesn’t have any
account on it. In
fact, a user has filed a suit against the company, alleging that the app “collects information of its users and
discloses, without adequate notice or authorization, this personal information
to third parties, including Facebook, invading the privacy of millions of
users”.
Motherboard found out that when any user opens the app Zoom,
the app automatically shares every details of the user’s device- the device’s
time zone, device model, the city they are in, the phone user they are using
and a “unique advertiser identifier”
that can be used for targeted
advertising.
“Zoom takes user’s
security extremely seriously. A large number of global institutions ranging
from the world’s largest financial services companies and telecommunication
providers, to no-governmental organizations and governmental agencies, have
done exhaustive security reviews of our user, network and data-center layers and
continue to use Zoom for most or all of their unified communications needs,”
Zoom said in a statement.
On April 1, however, in a blog post, Zoom founder Eric S.
Yuan, had said the company is freezing all new features immediately and will be putting all of its engineering resources to focus on its “biggest trust, safety and
privacy issues”. The company also said, on 27 March, that it has removed
the Facebook SDK in its iOS app and
“have reconfigured it to prevent it from collecting unnecessary device
information” from users.
Both CERT-IN and the Union Home Ministry have now suggested,
as part of the directive, that users and
organizations keep the software up to date and ensure that the password for
each meeting is changed and reset.
At the same time it also suggested the host of the meeting to “end
meeting” after the conference was over instead of “leaving” it, adding that
“these suggestions are especially important in which sensitive details are discussed”.
The Home Ministry also said these safety practices would
prevent unauthorized entry into the meeting rooms, as well as thwart “DOS
(denial of service) attacks and prevent authorized people to carry out
malicious tasks within various conferences”.
Meanwhile, the Indian Government on 13th April also issued
an advisory to all central government officers awaring them against using
third-party software and apps.
Still now after so much awareness from the government, we
can getting cases from India that their video calling in zoom got hacked. If we
people can’t understand the importance of the situation then truly no one can
save us. If we want to live happily and don’t want to become prey of the hacker
then it should be a common call from us
“NO ZOOM”.
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