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Letters | Zoom attacks show web conferencing platforms must devise industry guidelines for safer systems

The rising popularity of video conferencing during the Covid-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a rise in “Zoombombing” or online hijacking of sessions. The industry must know that, for most users, sacrificing privacy for convenience is not acceptable

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A student attends online classes using Zoom at home in El Masnou, Spain, on April 2, during a lockdown sparked by the coronavirus pandemic. Photo: Reuters
With the coronavirus pandemic putting the brakes on life as we know it, Zoom has become a popular video conferencing platform worldwide. Yet its rise in popularity has been accompanied by a rise in “Zoombombing” – intrusion into and disruption of online conferences – that has sparked security concerns.

On April 27, an online exam venue of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) was hijacked by several unidentified persons. Through the platform’s screen-sharing feature, porn videos and Indian songs were played during the Zoom meeting, and the exam was disrupted.

In the long weeks of online learning and working from home worldwide, this is not the first chat that was “Zoombombed”. In addition, it has been reported that a security flaw could give attackers access to Windows passwords, as well as Mac webcams and microphones, thus leaking private data including users’ email addresses and photos to strangers.  

During the pandemic, Zoom has scaled up from 10 million to more than 200 million daily users. It is used not only by schools, but also for work meetings and religious gatherings.

As a service provider on this scale, Zoom definitely needs to shoulder more social responsibility and build a safer system.

Firstly, it must improve encryption and increase privacy protection. As Zoom goes global, the personal and institutional privacy of millions of users are at stake. For most users, sacrificing privacy for the convenience of cloud-based conferencing would not be acceptable.

In the Zoombombing episode involving CUHK, some students were worried about personal information leaks, as they had to show their student ID cards during the online exam.

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