Remote conferencing services firm Zoom Video Communications Inc. (ZM) is facing a backlash over its video conferencing app Zoom video which is alleged to having been breached hence putting private user data at a great risk.
Earlier in the week, the company’s founder and Chief executive officer, Eric Yuan, indeed confirmed the data privacy concerns apologizing for the situation.
“We recognize that we have fallen short of the community’s and our own privacy and security expectations. For that, I am deeply sorry,” said Yuan.
In its defense the company claims a spike in its daily users across the Zoom platform is partly to blame for the predicament.
Zoomboming
In the just concluded March, the app recorded more than 200 million users who used this platform on that month only. As per its previous records, the largest number of users who accessed the Zoom app in one month prior to March was 10 million.
“To put this growth in context, as of the end of December last year, the maximum number of daily meeting participants, both free and paid, conducted on Zoom was approximately 10 million,” said Yuan who also labeled the current spike in number of Zoom users as ‘Zoombooming’.
Musk Prohibit Staff From Using Zoom
Due to the security threat on user data, Founder and CEO of both Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and SpaceX Elon Musk, urged his employers to refrain from using the Zoom platform rather seek other channels of communicating.
“We understand that many of us were using this tool (Zoom) for conferences and meeting support. Please use email, text or phone as alternate means of communication,” read the directive from Musk.
End-to-end Endcryption
According to a report by an Investigative website The Intercept, Zoom video is not end-to-end encrypted among parties holding a remote video meeting, this clearly means the company has the ability to access the sessions.
Immediately the report was posted, it went viral forcing the company to issue a public apology.
“We want to start by apologizing for the confusion we have caused by incorrectly suggesting that Zoom meetings were capable of using end-to-end encryption. Zoom has always strived to use encryption to protect content in as many scenarios as possible, and in that spirit, we used the term end-to-end encryption,” posted Zoom on its website.
Additionally, Zoom said it encrypts all content from Zoom meetings where all parties are using the Zoom app and the sessions are not being recorded. The company however claims it’s unable to encrypt data where users log in using other devices.
