Zoom privacy and security issues: Here’s everything that’s wrong (so far)

More than a dozen security and privacy problems have been found in Zoom recently. Here’s an updated list.

Are you using Zoom yet? Everyone in America who’s been forced to work, or do schoolwork, from home during the coronavirus lockdown seems to be using the video-conferencing platform for meetings, classes and even social gatherings. 

There are good reasons Zoom has taken off and other platforms haven’t. Zoom is easy to set up, easy to use and lets up to 100 people join a meeting for free. It just works.

But there’s a downside. Zoom’s ease of use has made it easy for troublemakers to “bomb” open Zoom meetings. Information-security professionals say Zoom’s security has left a lot of holes open. Those holes are quickly being patched, but new ones continue to appear.  

There’s also been a lot of scrutiny about Zoom’s privacy policy, which until recently seemed to give Zoom the right to do whatever it saw fit with any user’s personal data, and its encryption policies, which have been more than a tad misleading.

That’s created a backlash against Zoom. On April 6, New York City public schools moved to ban Zoom meetings, and other school systems did the same, although Singapore now seems to be reversing its ban on Zoom for distance-learning.

With this ton of issues, people are looking for other options, so check out our Skype vs Zoom face-off to see how an old video app has adapted for video conferencing. We’ve also compared Zoom vs Google Hangouts as well.

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