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Zoom app controversy.‘Zoom is malware’: why experts worry about the video conferencing platform
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A report from Motherboard found Zoom sends data from users of its iOS app to Facebook for advertising purposes, even if the user does not have a Facebook account. This privacy flaw was also mentioned in the letter from James, which noted such privacy violations could be of particular concern as schools migrate to Zoom for class.
This article is more than 2 years old. Many, including the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, have been using Zoom during the coronavirus crisis. Coronavirus and app downloads: what you need to know about protecting your privacy.
Zoom announced that it planned to roll out end-to-end encryption opens in new tab to Zoom Phone opens in new tab , its paid cloud calling service for Pro, Business or Enterprise accounts.
The end-to-end encryption will be an option for one-to-one Zoom Phone calls. Zoom announced via its Zoom Security Bulletin opens in new tab that the remote-hacking flaw demonstrated at the Pwn2Own competition in April had been fixed. Zoom reached a tentative settlement in a federal class-action lawsuit that alleged the company skimped on security, misled users and shared user personal data with third parties without notification or consent.
Enterprise and government Zoom account holders are not part of this litigation. Known class members will be notified by email or regular mail that they can file a claim, and others will be able to use the website www. Zoom has released a " simpler, clearer opens in new tab " privacy policy that reflects the fact that the online meeting service has "shifted from a primarily enterprise-focused product to one that is also used broadly by individuals" during the COVID pandemic.
The updated privacy policy includes more details about who can "see, save and share" Zoom meeting content, and the kinds of data that Zoom collects from users' devices.
You can read the full updated Zoom privacy "statement" here opens in new tab. In a blog post, Zoom announced that it had added privacy notifications opens in new tab to the latest version of its desktop client software. The notifications appear in the in-meeting chat window as a button labeled "Who can see your messages? It added that future updates would include notifications when a meeting host or participant uses a Zoom transcription or scheduling app during a meeting.
Two researchers demonstrated at the Pwn2Own contest that they could remotely take over Windows PCs and Macs by using at least one previously unknown vulnerability in the Zoom desktop application.
Fortunately, the only people who fully understand how this exploit works are the two researchers and Zoom itself, which is working on a fix. The chances of this attack being used "in the wild" are low, but if you're concerned, use the Zoom browser interface instead during meetings until this is fixed.
Zoom lets meeting participants share all of their computer screens, part of their screens, or just specific application windows with other people in the same meeting. Two German researchers discovered that for a brief moment, the entire screen may be visible even when the Zoom user sharing the screen intends only part of the screen to be.
Any participants recording the meeting would be able to freeze frames during playback and view potentially sensitive information. Zoom said it was working to fix the issue, but at the time of this writing, the flaw was still present in the latest version of the Zoom desktop client software for at least Windows and Linux.
Keybase, an encrypted social-media verification system and chat app bought by Zoom in May , had a serious flaw opens in new tab that preserved images in online directories even after the user had deleted them. The flaw was reported to Zoom in early January , and a Keybase software update to fix the flaw was released later that month.
A new study conducted by researchers at Boston University and Binghamton University found that efforts to stop "Zoom bombing," such as requiring passwords or making attendees stew in "waiting rooms," often won't work.
That's because many attacks are carried out by "insiders" who are already authorized to be in the meetings. The "only effective defense" against such insider attacks, the paper argues, is to create "unique join links for each participant. Plagued by an epidemic of Zoom-bombing during city-assembly meetings, the city of Juneau, Alaska is exploring ways to outlaw the practice.
Police in Alaska's capital have had a hard time tracking down the Zoom bombers. The city hopes that by making the practice illegal, it can compel Zoom to turn over information identifying the digital miscreants. In a bombshell announcement, the U. Department of Justice opens in new tab said it had issued an arrest warrant for former Zoom executive Jin Xinjiang, aka Julien Jin, who until recently had served as the liaison between Zoom and the Chinese government. The U. Jin is thought to be residing in China.
Jin allegedly had help from unnamed co-conspirators who created fake email accounts and Zoom accounts in the names of known Chinese dissidents "to fabricate evidence that the hosts of and participants in the meetings to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre were supporting terrorist organizations, inciting violence or distributing child pornography. The Dept. The DoJ announcement and arrest warrant opens in new tab refer only to an unnamed "Company-1" as Jin's employer, but in a blog post, Zoom admitted that it was the company opens in new tab and that it had been conducting its own investigation after it received a subpoena from the U.
The post further explained that Jin had been hired by Zoom in October as part of an agreement with the Chinese government, which in September had "turned off our service in China without warning. The price of getting Zoom turned back on in China was to hire "an in-house contact for law enforcement requests" — i. Zoom service was restored in China in November , and the Dept. Zoom admitted that Jin "shared or directed the sharing of a limited amount of individual user data with Chinese authorities," and that the information of "fewer than ten The Better Business Bureau opens in new tab is warning Zoom users that scammers are trying to steal their usernames and passwords via phishing emails and text messages, reports Threatpost opens in new tab.
The messages tell you that "your Zoom account has been suspended" or that "you missed a meeting," and offer a helpful link to log back in. But don't fall for the bait -- the login page is really a trap to capture your Zoom user credentials, with which the crooks can use or even steal your Zoom account.
One of the biggest problems with Zoom has been "Zoom bombing," in which uninvited participants crash a Zoom meeting and disrupt it. Over the weekend, Zoom released two new features to combat this. One, "Suspend Participant Activities," lets the meeting host pause the meeting, kick out disruptive participants, and then resume the meeting.
The other, "Report by Participants," extends to meeting participants the ability to report disruptive participants, a remedy that previously had been given only to meeting hosts. The Federal Trade Commission announced that Zoom "misled users" and "engaged in a series of deceptive and unfair practices" regarding its own security. The FTC cited the fake end-to-end encryption uncovered in March and software that Zoom installed on Macs without authorization in and Zoom must agree to yearly internal security reviews and external security reviews every other year and must implement a vulnerability-management program.
Another stipulation was that Zoom offer customers multi-factor authentication , which it has already implemented. Researchers in Texas and Oklahoma discovered that it's possible to tell what someone is typing during a Zoom call just by watching their shoulders and arms. Any kind of video-conferencing platform could be used for this, the researchers said, as could YouTube videos or streaming platforms like Twitch.
Zoom's end-to-end-encryption feature finally went live, except on iOS where it had to wait for Apple's approval. We've got instructions on how to enable Zoom's end-to-end encryption. After a long period of time with no Zoom news, the company announced that the end-to-end encryption it had been working on for many months would soon be available for beta testing. Users will have to wait for a Zoom client software update in the third week of October. Meeting hosts will be deciding whether to make a Zoom meeting end-to-end encrypted.
Those meetings will not work for now for users trying to join via the web-browser interface or over the telephone. If you recall that the Zoom web interface was out of commission for a few days back in April , now we know why: The company was fixing a very serious security flaw that could have let anyone join a private Zoom meeting. British security researcher Tom Anthony opens in new tab detailed on his blog this week how he found that he could make endless random guesses on the 6-digit PINs Zoom assigns to private meetings.
That's a million possibilities to go through, which might be tough for a human, but isn't hard for a decently powered PC running multiple threads. Anthony found he could break into Zoom meetings in about half an hour, give or take. That's long before many meetings are over. An unnamed security researcher found a critical flaw in the Zoom meetings client software for Windows that would let a hacker remotely take over any PC running Windows 7 or earlier.
Zoom fixed the flaw with a software update soon after the flaw became public knowledge. Backing down after sustained criticism from privacy advocates, Zoom announced in a blog posting June 17 opens in new tab that its upcoming end-to-end encryption E2E wouldn't just be for paid users any more.
The millions of people who use Zoom for free for school, socializing and work would get end-to-end encryption too. Yuan wrote. But if you're a free user who wants E2E, you'll first have to verify your identity to Zoom via a one-time-password or similar service. This will make it harder to "zoom bomb" meetings. The E2E encryption will remain an optional feature, Yuan reminded, because when it's activated, no one can join a meeting over the phone or with certain office teleconferencing equipment.
It'll be up to meeting hosts whether to activate E2E. Zoom's in hot water in the U. The company apologized for the actions in a blog post June 11 opens in new tab and said it would develop a way to block meeting participants from certain locations i. That wasn't enough to satisfy more than a dozen U.
Yuan demanding to know how cozy his company was with the Beijing government. Talos opens in new tab , an information-security research firm owned by Cisco, revealed June 3 that it had found two serious flaws in Zoom client applications, both of which have now been patched. The first flaw opens in new tab would have let an attacker use a specially created animated GIF placed in a Zoom meeting chat to hack Zoom client software on other people's machines to force the installation of malware, or, as Talos put it, "achieve arbitrary code execution.
The second flaw opens in new tab also involves the chat function in Zoom meeting client software, with similarly serious potential consequences. The problem was that Zoom did not validate the contents of shared compressed files such as. An attacker could have sent malware in the form of a compressed file to a user via Zoom meeting chat, and the user's Zoom client would have saved and opened the malware within the Zoom application's directory.
Even worse, if the user were to save the Zoom compressed file elsewhere on the PC, such as on the desktop, then the attacked could send an altered version of the first file with the same name. Zoom would open the second version but not the first automatically, permitting the malware to "plant binaries at almost arbitrary paths and Zoom's upcoming end-to-end encryption is mainly for paid users, as Zoom itself stated back on May 7. But Alex Stamos, a well-known information-security expert who is consulting Zoom on security matters, told Reuters opens in new tab last week that schools and other non-profit enterprises might be able to also get the end-to-end encryption for their accounts.
All administrators of Zoom Rooms need to update their software opens in new tab by May 30, Zoom said in a blog posting May The update to Zoom 5. More information about updating Zoom Rooms is here opens in new tab. The 5. Two more instances of corrupted Zoom installers were found by Trend Micro researchers. The first opens up a backdoor on a PC; the second spies on the PC's owner with screenshots, keylogging and webcam hijacking and drafts the PC into the Devil Shadow botnet.
Both installers do install the Zoom software client, so victims may be none the wiser. As always, get your Zoom software straight from the Zoom website at Zoom. Zoom suffered an unexplained outage Sunday, May 17, rendering it unavailable to thousands of users in the U.
The outage, which began Sunday morning U. Even the British government's daily coronavirus briefing opens in new tab was affected, knocking out the ability of journalists to ask questions over Zoom. Some users reported on Twitter that logging out of Zoom accounts, then logging back in, seemed to solve the issue. Zoom's status page noted that a backend update had taken place earlier Sunday morning, but there didn't seem to be any linkage between that update and the outage that began a few hours later.
The Zoom status page opens in new tab said at the time that the outages "appear to be limited to a subset of users" and that Zoom was "working to identify the root cause and scope of this issue. Cybercriminals may have registered hundreds of new Zoom-related website addresses in the past few weeks, according to researchers at Israeli security firm Check Point opens in new tab. Many of these sites are being used in phishing attacks to grab victims' Zoom usernames and passwords, and similar scams are leveraging rival video-conferencing platforms such as Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.
Over the weekend, online vandals hijacked the graduation ceremony at Oklahoma City University opens in new tab , replacing the Zoom video feed with racist language and symbols.
It wasn't immediately clear whether this was a result of regular Zoom-bombing or if the attackers used less well-known methods to disrupt the video feed. Zoom announced May 7 opens in new tab that due to its technical-support staff being overwhelmed with calls, it would be able to give personal technical assistance only to "owners and administrators" of paid accounts.
In other words, any user, owner or administrator of a free Zoom account, and end users of paid accounts, won't be entitled to human help. Instead, they'll have to rely on the FAQs and how-to's list on the Zoom online resources opens in new tab page.
For now, this provision applies only to May and June If the coronavirus lockdown last longer than that, Zoom may have to hire more tech-support staffers. New York State Attorney General Letitia James' office reached an agreement with Zoom opens in new tab May 7 following an investigation into Zoom's security and privacy practices.
There isn't a lot of new stuff in the agreement. Most of the stipulations Zoom agreed to are things the company is already doing, including making passwords mandatory and using better encryption. Manage your certificates like a pro.
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Zoom security issues: What's gone wrong and what's been fixed | Tom's Guide
Do you use Zoom? Sure you do. When the pandemic hit North America and Europe in Marchseemingly everyone who had to start working, going to school or even socializing from home started using the videoconferencing service. Boy were there zoom app controversy pains though.
Zoom went from 10 million daily users in December to million daily users in April Its security and privacy controveray came under sharp scrutiny conhroversy and experts didn't like what they found. Zoom's end-to-end encryption wasn't quite end-to-end. Other Zoom meeting attendees could see a lot about you.
Pranksters and bored teenagers could — and sometimes still — "Zoom bomb" public meetings with shocking or rude content. Zoom's privacy policies also seemed to give the company the right to do whatever it wanted with users' personal data. Most of those flaws have been fixed or otherwise mitigated since the spring ofbut newer issues crop up occasionally. We've got a running list of wpp gone wrong with Zoom, what's been fixed and what's still an open issue — after we give you a few zoom app controversy on how to make Zoom safer ziom use.
With all these issues, жмите have been looking for alternatives to Zoomso 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, and zoom app controversy have a rundown of the best free Zoom backgrounds. Unless you're discussing state secrets or personal health information, Zoom should be fine to use. It's easy to set upeasy to use and lets up ckntroversy people join a meeting for free.
It just conteoversy. For school classes, after-work get-togethers, or even workplace meetings zoom app controversy stick to routine business, there's not much risk in using Zoom. Kids will нажмите для деталей continue to flock to it, as they can even use Snapchat filters on Zoom. The web browser version gets security enhancements faster and "sits in a sandbox" to limit security problems, notes antivirus company Kaspersky opens in new tab.
When you click a link to join a meeting, your browser will open a new zoom app controversy and prompt you to use or install the Zoom desktop software. But there's zoom app controversy smaller link to "join from your controvegsy. That will make Zoom-bombing much zolm likely. We've put the most recent Zoom issues up top and separated older problems into those that are unresolved, those that have been fixed and those that don't fit into either category. A zoom app controversy researcher from Google's Project Zero discovered a security flaw in which the Zoom app controversy Client for Meetings and Zoom Rooms for Conference Room software fail to properly check the installation version during the update process.
As Zoom's server and its client server use different XML parsing libraries, a hacker could send a specific message to force the target client to download an older controverrsy of Zoom to launch attacks using vulnerabilities that have since been patched. This security flaw was patched with the release of Zoom version 5. Updating to the latest version of the videoconferencing software will protect you from any attacks exploiting this flaw. Following reports from multiple Mac users who said their microphones stayed on even after Zoom приведу ссылку had endedZoom pushed out a patch that was supposed to fix the problem.
It didn't quite work. Another patch a month later finally did turn the microphones off. Make sure your Zoom desktop client zoom app controversy Mac is app to version 5. You may have to install the update "manually" by downloading перейти на страницу directly from the Zoom website opens in new tab.
Zoom's client software for Windows and Mac personal use now lets you enable automatic updates opens in new tabwhich means you'll get all the latest crucial security fixes as soon as they come. Even better, the new feature lets you choose a "fast" or "slow" lane for less urgent updates, meaning that you can choose whether to get all the latest features and risk a little instability, or to proceed at a steady pace with maximum reliability.
Automatic updates will probably be enabled by zoom app controversy soon for all new and existing users. As a result of a zoom app controversy in a class-action lawsuit relating to some of the privacy and security issues detailed earlier on this page, anyone who used Zoom between March 30, and July 30, is entitled to a cash payout.
It might not be a lot of money per zoom app controversy. To file a claim, read the fine print at ZoomMeetingClassAction. Tom's Guide cannot guarantee that you will get anything. Zoom has patched three serious flaws in some of its enterprise video-conferencing software, the worst of which could have let zoom app controversy attacker penetrate a company's internal server system. The following enterprise Zoom applications are vulnerable and dontroversy be updated, per a zom from Positive Technologies opens in new tab : Meeting Connector Controller up to version 4.
Regarding consumer software, Zoom has fixed a security flaw in Controvedsy Client for Meetings for Windows, which отпад zoom cloud meeting app download microsoft считаю to be updated to version 5.
Controversyy according to the Zoom Security Bulletin opens in new tab cpntroversy. Zoom announced that beginning Nov. Anyone running software older than that will be prompted to update their software. This affects all Zoom software running on all supported platforms except for Zoom Room Controller software, at least for now. Zoom disclosed controvesy security issues opens in new tab that had been fixed in later versions of Zoom's desktop clients and plug-ins for Microsoft Outlook for both Windows and macOS.
The flaws ranged in severity from low to high, with zoom app controversy allowing remote code execution — i. All were patched by at least Zoom Client for Meetings 5. Zoom announced that it planned to roll out end-to-end encryption opens in new tab to Zoom Phone opens in new tabits paid cloud calling service for Pro, Business contrkversy Enterprise accounts.
The end-to-end encryption will be an option for one-to-one Zoom Phone calls. Zoom announced via its Zoom Security Bulletin opens in new tab that the remote-hacking flaw demonstrated at the Pwn2Own competition in Zlom had been fixed. Zoom reached a tentative settlement in a federal class-action lawsuit that alleged the company skimped on security, misled users and shared user personal controverdy with third parties controveersy notification or consent.
Enterprise and government Zoom account holders are not part of this litigation. Known class members will be notified by email or regular mail that they can file a claim, and others will be able to use the website www. Zoom has released a " simpler, clearer opens in new tab comtroversy privacy policy that reflects the fact that the online meeting service has "shifted from a primarily enterprise-focused product to one that is also used broadly by individuals" during the COVID pandemic.
The updated privacy policy includes more details about who can "see, save and share" Zoom meeting content, and the kinds of data that Zoom collects from users' devices. You can read the full zoom app controversy Zoom privacy "statement" here opens in new tab. In a blog post, Zoom announced that it had added privacy pap opens in new tab to the latest version of its desktop client software.
The notifications appear in the in-meeting chat window as a button labeled "Who can see your messages? Zoom app controversy added that future updates would include notifications when a meeting host or participant uses a Zoom transcription or scheduling app during a meeting. Two researchers demonstrated at the Pwn2Own contest that they could remotely take over Windows PCs and Macs by using at least controvsrsy previously unknown vulnerability in the Zoom desktop application.
Fortunately, the only people who fully understand how this exploit works are the zoom app controversy researchers and Zoom itself, zook is working on a fix.
The chances of zoom app controversy attack being used "in the wild" are low, but if you're concerned, use the Zoom browser interface instead during meetings until this is fixed. Zoom lets meeting participants share all of their computer zoom app controversy, part of their screens, or just specific application windows with other people in zoom app controversy same meeting.
Two German researchers discovered snapchat for zoom download for a brief moment, the entire screen may be visible even when the Zoom user sharing zoom app controversy contriversy intends only part of the contgoversy to be. Any participants recording the meeting would be able to freeze frames during playback and desktop zoom download free potentially cnotroversy information.
Zoom said it was working to fix the issue, but at the time of this writing, the flaw was still present in the latest version of the Zoom desktop client software for at least Windows and Linux. Keybase, an encrypted social-media verification system zoom app controversy chat app bought by Zoom in Mayhad a serious flaw opens in new /27323.txt that preserved images in online directories zoo after the user had deleted them.
The flaw was reported zoom app controversy Zoom in early Januaryand a Keybase zoom app controversy update to fix the flaw was released later that month. A new study conducted by researchers at Boston University and Binghamton University found that efforts to stop "Zoom bombing," such as requiring controversh or making attendees stew in "waiting rooms," often won't work.
That's because many attacks are carried out by "insiders" who are already authorized to be in the meetings. The "only effective defense" against such insider attacks, the paper argues, is to create "unique join links for each participant. Plagued by an epidemic of Zoom-bombing during city-assembly meetings, the city of Juneau, Alaska is exploring ways to outlaw the practice. Police in Alaska's capital have had a hard time tracking down the Zoom bombers.
The city hopes that by making the practice illegal, it can compel Zoom to turn over information identifying the digital miscreants. In a bombshell announcement, the U. Department of Justice opens in new tab said it had issued an arrest warrant for former Zoom executive Перейти на источник Xinjiang, aka Julien Jin, who until recently had served as the liaison between Zoom and the Chinese zooj. The U. Jin is thought clntroversy be residing in China.
Jin allegedly had help from unnamed co-conspirators who created fake email accounts and Zoom accounts in the names of known Chinese dissidents "to fabricate evidence that controverwy hosts of and participants in the cntroversy to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre were supporting terrorist organizations, inciting violence or distributing child pornography.
The Dept. The DoJ announcement and arrest warrant opens in new tab refer only to an unnamed "Company-1" as Jin's employer, but in a blog post, Zoom admitted that it was the company opens in new tab and that it had been conducting its own investigation after it received a subpoena fontroversy the U.
The post further explained that Jin had been hired by Zoom in October as part of an agreement with the Chinese government, which in September had "turned off our service in China without warning. The price of getting Zoom turned back on zoom app controversy China was to hire "an in-house contact for zoom app controversy enforcement requests" — i.
Zoom service was restored in China in Novemberand the Dept. Zoom app controversy admitted that Jin "shared or directed /22995.txt sharing of a limited amount of individual user data with Chinese authorities," and that zoom app controversy controveersy of "fewer than ten The Better Business Bureau opens in new tab is warning Zoom users that scammers are trying to steal their usernames and passwords via phishing emails and text messages, reports Threatpost opens in new tab.
The messages tell you that "your Zoom account has been suspended" or that "you missed a meeting," and offer a helpful link to log back in. But don't fall for the bait -- the wpp page is aapp a trap to capture your Zoom zlom credentials, with which coontroversy crooks can use or even steal your Zoom account.
One of the biggest problems with Zoom has controcersy "Zoom bombing," in which uninvited participants controvwrsy a Zoom meeting and disrupt it. Over the weekend, Zoom released two new features to combat this. One, "Suspend Participant Activities," lets the meeting host pause the meeting, kick out disruptive participants, and then resume the meeting.
The other, "Report by Participants," extends to meeting participants the ability to report disruptive participants, a remedy that previously had been given only to meeting hosts.
Controverey Federal Trade Commission announced that Zoom "misled users" and "engaged in a series of deceptive and unfair practices" regarding its посетить страницу security. The FTC cited the fake end-to-end encryption uncovered in Zoom app controversy and software that Zoom installed on Controfersy without authorization in and Zoom must agree to yearly internal security reviews and external security reviews every other year and must implement a vulnerability-management program.
Another stipulation was that Zoom offer customers multi-factor authenticationwhich it has already implemented.
Zoom app controversy -
Zero-days are hacks that take advantage of vulnerabilities the software maker doesn't know about, and which users have little or no defense against. Sources who told Vice about the zero-days said one exploit is for Windows and lets a remote attacker get full control of a target's computer.
The catch is that the attacker and the target have to be on the same Zoom call. This is a reaction to the discovery earlier in April that many Zoom meetings hosted by and involving U. Usernames and passwords for more than , Zoom accounts are being sold or given away in criminal marketplaces.
These accounts were not compromised as the result of a Zoom data breach, but instead through credential stuffing. That's when criminals try to unlock accounts by re-using credentials from accounts compromised in previous data breaches. It works only if an account holder uses the same password for more than one account. Researchers from IngSights discovered a set of 2, Zoom login credentials being shared in a criminal online forum.
Maor told Threatpost opens in new tab it didn't seem like the credentials came from a Zoom data breach, given their relatively small number. It's also possible that some of the credentials were the result of "credential stuffing. Information-security researchers know of several Zoom "zero-day" exploits opens in new tab , according to Vice.
Zero-days are exploits for software vulnerabilities that the software maker doesn't know about and hasn't fixed, and hence has "zero days" to prepare before the exploits appear. However, one Vice source implied that other video-conferencing solutions also had security flaws. Another source said that Zoom zero-days weren't selling for much money due to lack of demand.
Criminals are trading compromised Zoom accounts on the "dark web," Yahoo News opens in new tab reported. This information apparently came from Israeli cybersecurity firm Sixgill, which specializes in monitoring underground online-criminal activity. We weren't able to find any mention of the findings on the Sixgill website opens in new tab. Sixgill told Yahoo it had spotted compromised Zoom accounts that included meeting IDs, email addresses, passwords and host keys.
Some of the accounts belonged to schools, and one each to a small business and a large healthcare provider, but most were personal. If you have a Zoom account, make sure its password isn't the same as the password for any other account you have. Researchers at Trend Micro opens in new tab discovered a version of the Zoom installer that has been bundled with cryptocurrency-mining malware , i.
The Zoom installer will put Zoom version 4. By the way, the latest Zoom client software for Windows is up to version 4. The coin-miner will ramp up your PC's central processor unit, and its graphics card if there is one, to solve mathematical problems in order to generate new units of cryptocurrency.
To avoid getting hit with this malware, make sure you're running one of the best antivirus programs, and don't click on any links in emails, social media posts or pop-up messages that promise to install Zoom on your machine. It can't stop other people from copying and redistributing its installation software. Not only does Zoom mislead users about its "end-to-end encryption" see further down , but its seems to be flat-out, um, not telling the truth about the quality of its encryption algorithm.
Zoom says it use AES encryption to encode video and audio data traveling between Zoom servers and Zoom clients i. But researchers at the Citizen Lab opens in new tab at the University of Toronto, in a report posted April 3, found that Zoom actually uses the somewhat weaker AES algorithm. Even worse, Zoom uses an in-house implementation of encryption algorithm that preserves patterns from the original file.
It's as if someone drew a red circle on a gray wall, and then a censor painted over the red circle with a while circle. You're not seeing the original message, but the shape is still there. Yuan opens in new tab acknowledged the encryption issue but said only that "we recognize that we can do better with our encryption design" and "we expect to have more to share on this front in the coming days.
In Zoom's announcement of the upcoming April 26 desktop-software update, Zoom said it would be upgrading the encryption implementation opens in new tab to a better format for all users by May Good software has built-in anti-tampering mechanisms to make sure that applications don't run code that's been altered by a third party.
Zoom has such anti-tampering mechanisms in place, which is good. But those anti-tampering mechanisms themselves are not protected from tampering, said a British computer student who calls himself " Lloyd opens in new tab " in a blog post April 3. Needless to say, that's bad. Lloyd showed how Zoom's anti-tampering mechanism can easily be disabled, or even replaced with a malicious version that hijacks the application. If you're reading this with a working knowledge of how Windows software works, this is a pretty damning passage: "This DLL can be trivially unloaded, rendering the anti-tampering mechanism null and void.
The DLL is not pinned, meaning an attacker from a 3rd party process could simply inject a remote thread. In other words, malware already present on a computer could use Zoom's own anti-tampering mechanism to tamper with Zoom. Criminals could also create fully working versions of Zoom that have been altered to perform malicious acts.
Anyone can "bomb" a public Zoom meeting if they know the meeting number, and then use the file-share photo to post shocking images, or make annoying sounds in the audio. The FBI even warned about it opens in new tab a few days ago. The host of the Zoom meeting can mute or even kick out troublemakers, but they can come right back with new user IDs.
The best way to avoid Zoom bombing is to not share Zoom meeting numbers with anyone but the intended participants. You can also require participants to use a password to log into the meeting.
On April 3, the U. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan said that "anyone who hacks into a teleconference can be charged with state or federal crimes. Zoom automatically puts everyone sharing the same email domain into a "company" folder where they can see each other's information. Exceptions are made for people using large webmail clients such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or Outlook. Several Dutch Zoom users who use ISP-provided email addresses suddenly found that they were in the same "company" with dozens of strangers -- and could see their email addresses, user names and user photos.
STATUS: Unresolved, but an April 19 Zoom software update opens in new tab for Zoom web-interface users makes sure users on the same email domain can no longer automatically search for each other by name. The Zoom desktop client software will get similar fixes April Several privacy experts, some working for Consumer Reports, pored over Zoom's privacy policy and found that it apparently gave Zoom the right to use Zoom users' personal data and to share it with third-party marketers.
Following a Consumer Reports opens in new tab blog post, Zoom quickly rewrote its privacy policy, stripping out the most disturbing passages and asserting that "we do not sell your personal data.
We don't know the details of Zoom's business dealings with third-party advertisers. You can find open Zoom meetings opens in new tab by rapidly cycling through possible Zoom meeting IDs, a security researcher told independent security blogger Brian Krebs. The researcher got past Zoom's meeting-scan blocker by running queries through Tor, which randomized his IP address. It's a variation on "war driving" by randomly dialing telephone numbers to find open modems in the dial-up days.
The researcher told Krebs that he could find about open Zoom meetings every hour with the tool, and that "having a password enabled on the [Zoom] meeting is the only thing that defeats it. Two Twitter opens in new tab users opens in new tab pointed out that if you're in a Zoom meeting and use a private window in the meeting's chat app to communicate privately with another person in the meeting, that conversation will be visible in the end-of-meeting transcript the host receives.
A Kurdish security researcher opens in new tab said Zoom paid him a bug bounty -- a reward for finding a serious flaw -- for finding how to hijack a Zoom account if the account holder's email address was known or guessed. The researcher, who calls himself "s3c" but whose real name may be Yusuf Abdulla, said if he tried to log into Zoom with a Facebook account, Zoom would ask for the email address associated with that Facebook account. Then Zoom would open a new webpage notifying him that a confirmation email message had been sent to that email address.
The URL of the notification webpage would have a unique identification tag in the address bar. As an example that's much shorter than the real thing, let's say it's "zoom. When s3c received and opened the confirmation email message sent by Zoom, he clicked on the confirmation button in the body of the message. This took him to yet another webpage that confirmed his email address was now associated with a new account. So far, so good. But then s3c noticed that the unique identification tag in the Zoom confirmation webpage's URL was identical to the first ID tag.
Let's use the example "zoom. The matching ID tags, one used before confirmation and the other after confirmation, meant that s3c could have avoided receiving the confirmation email, and clicking on the confirmation button, altogether.
In fact, he could have entered ANY email address -- yours, mine or billgates gmail. Then he could have copied the ID tag from the resulting Zoom notification page and pasted the ID tag into an already existing Zoom account-confirmation page.
And because Zoom lets anyone using a company email address view all other users signed up with the same email domain, e. Zoom is fortunate that s3c is one of the good guys and didn't disclose this flaw publicly before Zoom could fix it.
But it's such a simple flaw that it's hard to imagine no one else noticed it before. Zoom has released updates for its Windows , macOS and Linux desktop client software so that meeting IDs will not display onscreen during meetings. Yuan opens in new tab said that Zoom had discovered "a potential security vulnerability with file sharing, so we disabled that feature.
Until this week, participants in a Zoom meeting could share files with each other using the meeting's chat function. Those AES encryption keys are issued to Zoom clients by Zoom servers, which is all well and good, except that the Citizen Lab opens in new tab found several Zoom servers in China issuing keys to Zoom users even when all participants in a meeting were in North America.
Since Zoom servers can decrypt Zoom meetings, and Chinese authorities can compel operators of Chinese servers to hand over data, the implication is that the Chinese government might be able to see your Zoom meetings.
That's got to be bad news for the British government, which has held at least one Cabinet meeting over Zoom. Yuan opens in new tab responded to the Citizen Lab report by saying that "it is possible certain meetings were allowed to connect to systems in China, where they should not have been able to connect.
We have since corrected this. Zoom advises meeting hosts to set up "waiting rooms" to avoid "Zoom bombing. The Citizen Lab said it found a serious security issue with Zoom waiting rooms opens in new tab , and advised hosts and participants to not use them for now. The Citizen Lab is not disclosing the details yet, but has told Zoom of the flaw. In a follow-up to their initial report opens in new tab. Zoom meetings have side chats in which participants can sent text-based messages and post web links.
That left Zoom chats vulnerable to attack. If a malicious Zoom bomber slipped a UNC path to a remote server that he controlled into a Zoom meeting chat, an unwitting participant could click on it. The participant's Windows computer would then try to reach out to the hacker's remote server specified in the path and automatically try to log into it using the user's Windows username and password. The hacker could capture the password "hash" and decrypt it, giving him access to the Zoom user's Windows account.
Mohamed A. Baset opens in new tab of security firm Seekurity said on Twitter that the same filepath flaw also would let a hacker insert a UNC path to a remote executable file into a Zoom meeting chatroom.
If a Zoom user running Windows clicked on it, a video posted by Baset showed, the user's computer would try to load and run the software. The victim would be prompted to authorize the software to run, which will stop some hacking attempts but not all. After Vice News exposed the practice, Zoom said it hadn't been aware of the profile-sharing and updated the iOS apps to fix this. We learned last summer that Zoom used hacker-like methods to bypass normal macOS security precautions.
We thought that problem had been fixed then, along with the security flaw it created. But a series of tweets March 30 from security researcher Felix Seele, who noticed that Zoom installed itself on his Mac without the usual user authorizations, revealed that there was still an issue.
The same tricks that are being used by macOS malware. Yuan opens in new tab tweeted a friendly response. That was a swift and comprehensive reaction. Zoom just released an update for the macOS installer which completely removes the questionable "preinstall"-technique and the faked password prompt.
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Setting a unique and strong password for each meeting remains the best way of ensuring that only the people you want in your meeting can attend. Last year, Zoom made the sensible move to turn password protection on by default. But just to be clear, your zoom account password and meeting password are not the same — they are two different passwords. You should also avoid reusing meeting passwords. While you may find that the quality of your video call is better on the app, the web browser version gets security enhancements much faster.
And aside from the updates, the web version is still more secure. That's because it lives in a browser's sandbox, meaning it has far fewer permissions and a reduced ability to cause issues across your entire operating system.
When you click a link to join a meeting, your browser will open a new tab and prompt you to use or install the Zoom desktop software.
But in the fine print, there's a link to "join from your browser. So, there you have it; providing you take the right preventative measures and only use Zoom where it is appropriate, you should be okay. Netitude has been delivering secure, reliable and productive IT for business growth, since If your business needs advice, additional IT support or business technology solutions, get in touch with one of our experts today, we're always happy to help!
Whenever Zoom fixes any security vulnerability, it publishes the updated version of its app. The user has a duty to install the updated version to protect themselves. They even hired some top-notch security consultants such as Alex Stamos from the security industry to show their seriousness towards security and privacy.
However, there are still some security concerns that exist. They include a link to a fake website designed to mimic Zoom and encourage users to log in to register or attend the meeting. More savvy users will be able to notice the many red flags across these pages, such as suspicious URLs and non-functioning links. However, less experienced and older users could easily be tricked into typing in their email address and password on this unsecured site being monitored by hackers. Scammers use such phishing email tactics and provide link[s] to the recipients.
If users click on such links, they are asked to log in with their credentials to access the video recordings or join the meeting. Sometimes, malware gets downloaded on their system.
As you have read here, Zoom has worked aggressively to solve most of its security issues. Manage Certificates Like a Pro. Contact details collected on InfoSec Insights may be used to send you requested information, blog update notices, and for marketing purposes. Learn more Medha is a regular contributor to InfoSec Insights. She's a tech enthusiast and writes about technology, website security, cryptography, cyber security, and data protection.
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