Why The Zoom App Isn’t Safe & Has a Lot of Security Problems.
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- Zoom: One year on, is it safe to use?
You can do this by turning off HD in the video settings. Here is how to do it:. Keeping both video and audio on is purely wasteful if you're not actively participating in the meeting. Use your bandwidth efficiently by muting your audio or turning off your video when you aren't using it. This will allow Zoom to process its other operations with maximum bandwidth. This is a handy fix that works like a charm during long meetings.
You can muffle yourself by clicking on the microphone icon in the lower right corner. Similarly, you can stop your video by clicking the Stop Video icon. You can also toggle these functions using these shortcuts. You may use this fix if you encounter Zoom lag when using its web version.
If you tend to open too many tabs without using them or run multiple browsers simultaneously, you might want to consider letting your active browser breathe. Your browser can use maximum resources to provide smooth performance when using the Zoom web client by shutting down memory-hogging processes. To avoid high disk usage issues, you can also turn off other apps and browsers running parallel with Chrome. Additionally, if you are downloading anything on Chrome while using the Zoom web client, consider pausing it until the meeting ends.
By reserving more resources, Zoom will perform more efficiently. Updating apps will resolve any issues with the app's functionality, ensuring that no internal problems exist. Issues like the one under discussion can occur when the app is not updated. By updating your app, you not only fix the issues you're experiencing but improve its performance as well. Hence, make sure your app is updated. If you're using the latest version of Zoom, the app will notify you with a message saying You're up to date.
In fact, the government has also issued certain guidelines for people using Zoom to follow for protection against such attacks. Also, if not used with the proper safety precautions, your private and confidential information might also be stolen from you through the recording feature on your laptop.
This means that even if the connection is secure, the video calls can be decrypted by a third party. An engineer, a history buff and a book-eater. A writer with a newfound interest in technology, attempting to build a bridge between the two! Redmi Note 9 Leaked! Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open. By Radhika Kajarekar Last updated Apr 18, The problem was that Zoom did not validate the contents of shared compressed files such as.
An attacker could have sent malware in the form of a compressed file to a user via Zoom meeting chat, and the user's Zoom client would have saved and opened the malware within the Zoom application's directory. Even worse, if the user were to save the Zoom compressed file elsewhere on the PC, such as on the desktop, then the attacked could send an altered version of the first file with the same name.
Zoom would open the second version but not the first automatically, permitting the malware to "plant binaries at almost arbitrary paths and Zoom's upcoming end-to-end encryption is mainly for paid users, as Zoom itself stated back on May 7. But Alex Stamos, a well-known information-security expert who is consulting Zoom on security matters, told Reuters opens in new tab last week that schools and other non-profit enterprises might be able to also get the end-to-end encryption for their accounts.
All administrators of Zoom Rooms need to update their software opens in new tab by May 30, Zoom said in a blog posting May The update to Zoom 5. More information about updating Zoom Rooms is here opens in new tab. The 5. Two more instances of corrupted Zoom installers were found by Trend Micro researchers. The first opens up a backdoor on a PC; the second spies on the PC's owner with screenshots, keylogging and webcam hijacking and drafts the PC into the Devil Shadow botnet.
Both installers do install the Zoom software client, so victims may be none the wiser. As always, get your Zoom software straight from the Zoom website at Zoom. Zoom suffered an unexplained outage Sunday, May 17, rendering it unavailable to thousands of users in the U.
The outage, which began Sunday morning U. Even the British government's daily coronavirus briefing opens in new tab was affected, knocking out the ability of journalists to ask questions over Zoom. Some users reported on Twitter that logging out of Zoom accounts, then logging back in, seemed to solve the issue. Zoom's status page noted that a backend update had taken place earlier Sunday morning, but there didn't seem to be any linkage between that update and the outage that began a few hours later.
The Zoom status page opens in new tab said at the time that the outages "appear to be limited to a subset of users" and that Zoom was "working to identify the root cause and scope of this issue.
Cybercriminals may have registered hundreds of new Zoom-related website addresses in the past few weeks, according to researchers at Israeli security firm Check Point opens in new tab.
Many of these sites are being used in phishing attacks to grab victims' Zoom usernames and passwords, and similar scams are leveraging rival video-conferencing platforms such as Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. Over the weekend, online vandals hijacked the graduation ceremony at Oklahoma City University opens in new tab , replacing the Zoom video feed with racist language and symbols. It wasn't immediately clear whether this was a result of regular Zoom-bombing or if the attackers used less well-known methods to disrupt the video feed.
Zoom announced May 7 opens in new tab that due to its technical-support staff being overwhelmed with calls, it would be able to give personal technical assistance only to "owners and administrators" of paid accounts. In other words, any user, owner or administrator of a free Zoom account, and end users of paid accounts, won't be entitled to human help.
Instead, they'll have to rely on the FAQs and how-to's list on the Zoom online resources opens in new tab page. For now, this provision applies only to May and June If the coronavirus lockdown last longer than that, Zoom may have to hire more tech-support staffers.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James' office reached an agreement with Zoom opens in new tab May 7 following an investigation into Zoom's security and privacy practices. There isn't a lot of new stuff in the agreement. Most of the stipulations Zoom agreed to are things the company is already doing, including making passwords mandatory and using better encryption. In the long term, Zoom has to conduct regular code reviews and conduct yearly penetration-testing exercises, in which paid hackers try to break through the company's defenses.
Only two new things will directly affect consumers. It also has to update its Acceptable Use policies to ban "abusive conduct include hatred against others based on race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, gender, or sexual orientation. Frankly, these are longstanding standard policies at many other online companies, so we're a little surprised that they weren't already Zoom policies.
Yuan announced opens in new tab. The purchase price or other terms of the deal were not disclosed. Keybase makes user-friendly software to easily and securely encrypt messaging and social media posts. In March, Zoom had to admit that its touted "end-to-end" encryption was not the real thing because Zoom's own servers are always able to access the contents of meetings.
Once Keybase's technology is incorporated, that will no longer always be the case. Meeting passwords and waiting rooms will be required by default for all Zoom meetings, free or paid, beginning May 9, Zoom announced. Only hosts will be able to share their screens by default, but like the other settings, that can be changed.
Yuan said the massive increase in Zoom usage since the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown had been "challenging," but also provided "opportunities for us to drive meaningful change and improvement. Yuan admitted that "we failed to set pre-configured security features for our new customers, especially for schools," referring to meeting passwords and waiting rooms. That resulted in "uninvited, offensive, and sometimes even truly evil people disrupting meetings," Yuan wrote.
Such a person disrupted a Zoom meeting on sexual violence opens in new tab in the Bay Area last week. Yuan also addressed rumors about his own, and Zoom's, ties to China.
He said he had lived in the U. A reporter for London's Financial Times resigned after he was caught crashing internal Zoom meetings at rival London newspapers. Mark Di Stefano announced his resignation on Twitter opens in new tab after The Independent opens in new tab documented how Di Stefano had last week joined an Independent staff meeting regarding pay cuts and furloughs, first under his own name, then anonymously. Di Stefano cited his sources as "people on the call," The Independent said.
The Independent also found that Di Stefano's cellphone had earlier been used to access a Zoom meeting at the Evening Standard, another London newspaper. That meeting was followed by a Financial Times piece about Evening Standard furloughs and pay cuts. Zoom isn't the only video-conferencing platform to have questionable privacy policies, Consumer Reports opens in new tab said in a blog post: Cisco Webex, Microsoft's Teams and Skype, and Google's Duo, Meet and Hangouts do too.
Consumer Reports said you should know that everything in a video meeting may be recorded, either by the host or another participant. It also recommended dialing into video-conference meetings over the phone, not creating accounts with the services if possible, and using "burner" email addresses otherwise. After prodding from reporters at The Verge opens in new tab , Zoom admitted that it did not in fact have a recent peak of million daily users, as stated in a blog post last week. Rather, Zoom had a peak of million daily "participants.
Researchers at Trend Micro spotted another Zoom installer file that had been corrupted with malware. In this case, it's spyware that can turn on the webcam, take screenshots and log keystrkes, as well as collecting diagnostic data about the system it's running on. It also installs a fully working version of the Zoom desktop client.
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.
Zoom app bad -
Also, if not used with the proper safety precautions, your private and confidential information might also be stolen from you through the recording feature on your laptop. This means that even if the connection is secure, the video calls can be decrypted by a third party. An engineer, a history buff and a book-eater. A writer with a newfound interest in technology, attempting to build a bridge between the two!
Redmi Note 9 Leaked! Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open. By Radhika Kajarekar Last updated Apr 18, Why is the app so dangerous? The sharer host may be interrupting the process. Technically, the person sharing their screen can stop the remote control at any time by clicking their mouse.
Always leave the host computer alone while the viewer client assumes remote control. You could be on the wrong device.
Another common problem is not being able to receive email messages from Zoom. This can include notifications and activation emails. These can take up to 30 minutes to arrive and may take longer. Emails will come from no-reply zoom. Sometimes there are server issues or platform maintenance, which could mean the service will be down for a while. You will need to wait, if this is the case. As long as your internet connection is sufficient, it tends to be a bit more reliable if the installed app is experiencing problems.
Sometimes Zoom can get confused about audio versus video settings. Make sure video connections are routed to your webcam and, if necessary, your audio is routed to connected speakers. Yes, Zoom bombing is a thing. If someone Zoom-bombed your meeting in the past, there is one solution that is incredibly effective at preventing future invasions. The host creating the meeting and sending out invitations can require all participants to enter a passcode before joining.
That means strangers have a hard time finding ways to drop in. In fact, requiring a password is set as the default. And if you are worried about hacking in more elaborate ways, there is good news: Zoom has end-to-end encryption to all meetings. Ultimately, this will help protect content and prevent more advanced versions of Zoom-bombing, even if you are using a free account.
Best Prime Day MacBook deals for Best Prime Day Fitbit deals Sales to shop today. Best Walmart Prime Day deals for Best Prime Day phone deals of Best Prime Day soundbar deals for Best Prime Day Instant Pot deals for If the coronavirus lockdown last longer than that, Zoom may have to hire more tech-support staffers.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James' office reached an agreement with Zoom opens in new tab May 7 following an investigation into Zoom's security and privacy practices. There isn't a lot of new stuff in the agreement. Most of the stipulations Zoom agreed to are things the company is already doing, including making passwords mandatory and using better encryption. In the long term, Zoom has to conduct regular code reviews and conduct yearly penetration-testing exercises, in which paid hackers try to break through the company's defenses.
Only two new things will directly affect consumers. It also has to update its Acceptable Use policies to ban "abusive conduct include hatred against others based on race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, gender, or sexual orientation.
Frankly, these are longstanding standard policies at many other online companies, so we're a little surprised that they weren't already Zoom policies. Yuan announced opens in new tab. The purchase price or other terms of the deal were not disclosed. Keybase makes user-friendly software to easily and securely encrypt messaging and social media posts.
In March, Zoom had to admit that its touted "end-to-end" encryption was not the real thing because Zoom's own servers are always able to access the contents of meetings. Once Keybase's technology is incorporated, that will no longer always be the case. Meeting passwords and waiting rooms will be required by default for all Zoom meetings, free or paid, beginning May 9, Zoom announced. Only hosts will be able to share their screens by default, but like the other settings, that can be changed.
Yuan said the massive increase in Zoom usage since the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown had been "challenging," but also provided "opportunities for us to drive meaningful change and improvement. Yuan admitted that "we failed to set pre-configured security features for our new customers, especially for schools," referring to meeting passwords and waiting rooms.
That resulted in "uninvited, offensive, and sometimes even truly evil people disrupting meetings," Yuan wrote. Such a person disrupted a Zoom meeting on sexual violence opens in new tab in the Bay Area last week. Yuan also addressed rumors about his own, and Zoom's, ties to China.
He said he had lived in the U. A reporter for London's Financial Times resigned after he was caught crashing internal Zoom meetings at rival London newspapers. Mark Di Stefano announced his resignation on Twitter opens in new tab after The Independent opens in new tab documented how Di Stefano had last week joined an Independent staff meeting regarding pay cuts and furloughs, first under his own name, then anonymously.
Di Stefano cited his sources as "people on the call," The Independent said. The Independent also found that Di Stefano's cellphone had earlier been used to access a Zoom meeting at the Evening Standard, another London newspaper. That meeting was followed by a Financial Times piece about Evening Standard furloughs and pay cuts. Zoom isn't the only video-conferencing platform to have questionable privacy policies, Consumer Reports opens in new tab said in a blog post: Cisco Webex, Microsoft's Teams and Skype, and Google's Duo, Meet and Hangouts do too.
Consumer Reports said you should know that everything in a video meeting may be recorded, either by the host or another participant. It also recommended dialing into video-conference meetings over the phone, not creating accounts with the services if possible, and using "burner" email addresses otherwise. After prodding from reporters at The Verge opens in new tab , Zoom admitted that it did not in fact have a recent peak of million daily users, as stated in a blog post last week.
Rather, Zoom had a peak of million daily "participants. Researchers at Trend Micro spotted another Zoom installer file that had been corrupted with malware. In this case, it's spyware that can turn on the webcam, take screenshots and log keystrkes, as well as collecting diagnostic data about the system it's running on.
It also installs a fully working version of the Zoom desktop client. 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. You can find open Zoom meetings opens in new tab by rapidly cycling through possible Zoom meeting IDs, a security researcher told independent security blogger Brian Krebs. The researcher got past Zoom's meeting-scan blocker by running queries through Tor, which randomized his IP address.
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