Popular video conferencing software Zoom has come under fire for lapse security measures which caused data leaks and other problems like ‘Zoombombing’ where third-party users can hijack a video call to broadcast unsavoury content.
Almost a week on, it seems like people are continuing to find more flaws with the software – the latest coming from The Washington Post claims that personal Zoom videos can be accessed by strangers from the company’s cloud servers without any real preventive measures set in palce.
According to the report, the videos appear to have been recorded using the Zoom software itself and saved onto a separate online storage source. The videos that could we accessed online include private conversations between people as well as online kindergarten classes where the faces, voices and names of the students were easily accessible.
It is important to note that Zoom does not automatically record these video chats – but rather the hosts can choose to record and save them onto the servers without the other participant’s consent. However, they do receive a notification when a recording is started.
But the feature is utilized by users as a way of saving important conversations like meeting discussions, workshop instructions, and more – apparently, one of the videos include a one-to-one lesson on Brazilian waxing; yikes!
Zoom chief executive Eric Yuan has acknowledged the issue and has apologized for failing to meet “privacy and security” expectations. The company will be freezing new features for 90 days and have directed engineers to work on existing issues.
