Zoom is absolutely safe! 10 chief traces for you to logically decide- ‘use Zoom or not’!

(Blog post @eviewhost.com)  

 

It's 'the quarantine time' and there's no chance you can go and meet your friends, relatives. Also you definitely may be missing your class time, office meetings and all. While we all were struggling to manage spend our lock-down days without our extended family, there dropped in something called as 'Zoom Aaplication' and suddenly millions of people logged in to fulfil their part without actually meeting the person in need physically.

 

But in all that excitement, it seem that nobody bothered think about the data safety, ID encryptions and more. No sooner had many tried Zoom for the first time than they began to hear reasons they might want to stay away. 10 points you must note regarding 'Zoom Safety', espesially when people around are in doubt whether to use it more or not!

 

1. Zoom video conferencing app has seen an unprecedented level of growth in the past month or so. This is mainly we know because of the coronavirus pandemic that has forced people to stay indoors and work from home, leaving voice and video calls the only way of communication.

 

2. Is zoom safe?- A report by 'Bleeping Computers LLC' (a computer help site founded by Lawrence Abrams in 2004) reveals that over 500,000 Zoom accounts are being sold on the dark web and hacker forums for less than a penny each, and in some cases, given away for free for hackers to use them in zoom-bombing pranks and malicious activities. 

 

3. What is Zoom-bombing?- Zoombombing is when uninvited participants interrupt or derail a meeting. Sometimes it’s harmless trolling, but often it rises to the level of harassment. This may happen in case of meeting IDs being publically shared. Zoom’s default setting allow anyone to join video calls if they have the meeting ID, which is a number 9 to 11 digits long. Be safe!

 

4. Does Zoom send data to Facebook?- Zoom isn't completely honest in dealing with the iOS users. While many of the Facebook sters avoid noting their phone numbers on the wall, Zoom did it if you (iOS user) probably logged in to the video aap before March 27. After two law suits were filed against the company, Zoom Chief Executive Eric Yuan said in a blog post March 27 that the company removed code that sent user data to Facebook in an updated version of the iOS app. 

5. Zoom calls encryption- Zoom has been using a different type of encryption, called transport encryption, which enables the company to decode the content of calls. Though this is not so harmful to note, the calls may unknowingly get recorded via zoom-bombing if the meeting ID is shared publically or hacked in spite of your most care.

6. Tracking attendees- If you were in a meeting or an online zoom class and your host knew you were not attentive to the session, well that was no surprise fact earlier as Zoom used something called as 'attention tracking feature'. This feature notified the host of your less attentiveness. But did it not breach your privacy pact with zoom? Keeping this in mind, it is since April 2 that the company has removed the attendee attention tracker feature as part of commitment to the security and privacy of all the customers. 

7. How to use Zoom safe?- As mentioned earlier, it will be all good if you be careful about how you share meeting IDs. Also you need to generate a new ID for every meeting you launch using the options panel, instead of using your personal meeting ID. This will help you disrupt the meeting disruption process by zoom-bombers.

 

8. Waiting Room feature- It is since April 4 that Zoom in a bid to maintain its customer base has put on the feature of 'Waiting Room' by default. This feature now by on its own lets meeting hosts keep would be participants in a digital queue until they approve them to join the session. 

9. Alternative video meeting platforms- In spite of all this info, if you feel that you and your data is not safe on Zoom, you can anytime switch in to Skype, Google Duo, Whatsapp video calls, Hangout, FaceTime (for Apple users) for secured, uninterrupted face to face virtual communication.

 

10. But why Zoom?- Zoom is one of the platforms people have appearingly adopted to replace these in-person interactions amid the coronavirus outbreak. And it works relatively well while connecting to more than 6 persons at a time.

 

Summing up, when we talk of data security and encryptions, do we really know that our data on other social media sites is safe? We all have read about the Cambridge Analytica episode and yet we go trust Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, three being brothers now! Moreover, every website these days, every social media platfrom demands the user to feed in the email address or phone number. Do we know how these websites, social media handles use our data? No body is trustworthy I think and if we choose to trust someone, we must trust everybody for every good there's an equal bad planned! Zoom is safe people, its just that you need to take care while you share your meet details.