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Zoom, the videoconferencing app, has become ubiquitous after the pandemic broke out. It’s the lifeline for work-from-home and online learning, in the times of lockdowns and social distancing. But the app has security loopholes, which has made it possible for hackers to gatecrash into ongoing video-conferences and display offensive messages and images – a phenomenon called ‘zoombombing’. The company has agreed to pay $85 million to settle a legal suit that accused it of violating users’ privacy with its security weaknesses. Payment would be in form of refunds over subscriptions.
Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEESnmEudkE
If a federal judge approves the settlement, Zoom subscribers will receive a 15 percent refund on their primary subscriptions or $25, whichever is greater. Other users too can look forward to a refund of up to $15 (details are yet to be announced). Zoom Video Communications has also agreed to improve its security systems, but it has denied any wrongdoing. [https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/01/zoom-reaches-85-million-settlement-over-user-privacy-and-hacker-zoombombing.html]
Fourteen class-action complained were filed against Zoom right in March last year when Zoom was just beginning to enter common parlance. They accused it of sharing personal data with third-party internet services such as Facebook, Google and LinkedIn. Secondly, the complaints said Zoom falsely told users that its service was end-to-end encrypted, meaning no outsider could access it, but the early weeks of the lockdown last year saw a lot of “Zoombombing” from hackers. [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/style/zoombombing-zoom-trolling.html] This often involved racism and pornography. For example, during a webinar on anti-Semitism, some hackers would disrupt the meet by posting white supremacist messages using the screen-sharing function.
Zoombombing can happen in two ways – from outsider trolls and also from genuine participants. [https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/Zoombombing]
The genuine link to an event or business meet or classroom is often shared in public, for example, over social media, and an uninvited person can invite themselves and create havoc. That’d be like a malcontent disrupting a public meeting and Zoom cannot be blamed. But trolls also use illegitimate ways to gatecrash videoconferences. Hijackers can figure out a genuine URL or a meeting ID that are unprotected and vulnerable through a basic Google search too.
Also read:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/01/technology/zoom-lawsuit-zoombombing.html
How to prevent it
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/how-to-prevent-zoombombing-in-your-video-chats-in-4-easy-steps/
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/17/zoombombing/