Zoom had a meteoric rise to fame over the last few months as the Coronavirus ravaged the world and forced much of the working population to stay home. With the popularity also came intense scrutiny, and also unwanted attention from miscreants. Hackers have continued to wreak havoc on Zoom calls, with an act called “Zoom Bombing.” Zoom has announced new measures it taking to stop this kind of behaviour.
The new changes are geared specifically towards free users. Zoom is now going to make it mandatory for free users to use passwords for all meetings. The new change in policy will go into effect on May 9, 2020. A new level of encryption will also be introduced across the platform from 30 May, which it says will "provide increased protection for meeting data and resistance against tampering.”
However, Zoom has still not implemented end-to-end encryption on its platform, which is problematic. While free or even paying users may not care much for end-to-end encryption, anyone using the app for sensitive conversations would find the lack of end-to-end encryption problematic. This also makes Zoom a no-go when it comes to using it in political setups or even enterprises, which value privacy and security over anything else.
Zoom has had a number of issues plague its popularity, one of the biggest ones revolving around security. Zoom Bombing has been one of the worst things to experience as a user of the platform. Zoom Bombing is when an uninvited individual hacks their way into a Zoom video call and ends up subjecting the attendees to unpleasant experiences. Many Zoom Bombing incidents have reported cases of racism, harassment and the likes. Recently, there was an incident where a hacker posted a video depicting child abuse in one of the meetings, prompting a strong response from the creators of the app.
Lately, Zoom has been doing a lot to address all the criticism that has been directed its way. The introduction of mandatory passwords for all meetings seems to be a step in the right direction, but it's only a matter of time until we find out whether this is an effective move or not.