Is Zoom Stealing our Data?

Introduction 

Today, the entire world is facing the enormous impetus of Coronavirus. Over 34 lakh people have been affected with his virus out of which around 2.4 lakhs have been deceased. This has led to lockdown in many countries. Countries like India have been in total lockdown for over a month and are still in the same situation. In such a situation, no one is allowed to move out of their house unless for an emergency or in need of medicine or essential goods. In this case, various services providing areas have to be closed which will bring a break to various social and economic activities. So to prohibit this break, online meeting applications like Zoom has taken the charge. It is one of the most downloaded and fastest growing online meeting applications of the world. To understand better about it, refer Zoom App's Usage Booms.

It has been one of the most preferred applications because of its features. However, since few months users are experiencing their devices getting hacked and inflow of malicious files and outflow of secret data. If you are not aware of the news then read this article. 

Cases of Data Breach

Zoom application has been download by millions of people all over the world trusting its features and security. It is recorded that between the period of 14th March 2020 to 21st March 2020 the application was downloaded over 62 million times worldwide which calculates to be around 90% more than the weekly average business application. The growth was experienced in many countries like USA, Britain, France, India, Germany and so on. With so many users in such big countries, it became a soft target for hackers worldwide. They cracked the extravagant security system of Zoom and entered inside the accounts of users. However, some reports also say that Zoom itself is one of the hackers breaching our data or threatening our privacy and allowing other hackers to get into our accounts. 

Ways of Accounts Getting Hacked

Zoom is targeted by many hackers around the globe and everyone does it in their way. Zoom is also involved in many acquisitions. Here are few indications which were experienced by Zoom users alerting yours from getting attacked. 

• Zoom provides an option of signing up with the same company email domain to ease out the work of colleagues' calls which is "Company Directory'. However, when you sign up with your private account your contact list is automatically added with thousands of unknown users in a few days. This makes work of hackers very easy to break into our devices. 
• One of the hackers in an interview disclosed that the data such as webcam data, microphone and all the consolidated data are sold on the dark web. The hacker also stated that the data stolen from this app are sold for $5,000 - $30,000 which is an unusual price for data. 
• iOS users experienced that whenever they used the app, it shares the users' data with Facebook. When Apple found out about various loopholes of this app, it started securing users Mac computers in various ways. 

Conclusion

Zoom application provides a lot of necessary features which are suitable for fulfilling the satisfaction of offline meetings. However, no one can ever afford even a minor flaw in an app where they conduct confidential meetings or give out soft copies stored in our devices. Zoom is taking various measures to overcome this's flaw although when the organisation itself is involved in a fraudulent dealing then you can not expect it to be secure. If you are using the app, you must take measures to prevent such mishap. Changing passwords frequently, verifying contact list frequently and such precautions might help.