As usage of Zoom rises amidst the global pandemic, more companies are telling their staff to stay off the video conferencing service due to security concerns.
Among the latest organisations to block the use of Zoom are German industrial giant Siemens, which sent out an internal circular urging its employees to not use the tool for video conferencing, with Standard Chartered Bank also issuing a similar note to its staff.
The latter has told employees to avoid Google Hangouts, which has also emerged as another popular teleconferencing application in recent weeks.
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Mounting problems
For Zoom, this has been the proverbial best of times and the worst of times. In March, the company revealed it had reached more than 200 million daily meeting participants, both free and paid, up from 10 million users in December.
But as its usage boomed, cybersecurity experts warned of serious issues with the security protocols in both both Zoom and Google Hangouts compared to the other enterprise-grade applications like Microsoft Teams, Webex and Bluejeans.
Zoom has been particularly vulnerable to attacks from hackers who have managed to barge into others' video chats and slip in lewd, vulgar messages and racial slurs.
As the usage of Zoom has picked up among schools and colleges, such attacks from interlopers have sent waves of concerns among the users, with schools in the US and Singapore blocking the platform.
Aside, it has also emerged that Zoom is dependent on Chinese R&D for its product development, which has led to Taiwan and Germany totally banning it for official use.
Furthermore, US intelligence officials have also expressed their concern over possible Chinese espionage taking advantage of Zoom’s security vulnerabilities.
Via: Reuters
