Govt says Zoom video app unsafe, must not be used for its meetings: Report

The Cyber Coordination Centre (CCC) of the Ministry of Home Affairs has warned people that the Zoom video conferencing app for meetings is not a safe platform for government and official use, IANS reported. 

In the advisory, issued on April 12, it said that "secure use of Zoom meeting platform is for private individuals and not for use of government offices or official purposes". The government said that CERT-In on the same lines had been informed on February 6 and March 30 this year clarifying that "Zoom is not a safe platform".

In a set of guidelines for the safety of private users, the CCC division of the MHA mentioned that "those private individuals who still would like to use Zoom for private purposes" should follow certain guidelines like prevention of unauthorised entry in the conference room and unauthorised participants to carry out any malicious activity on terminals of others in the conference. The advisory also suggested to "avoid 'DOS' attacks by restricting users through passwords and access grant".

Zoom app has apparently become a favourite and famous tool among people during the lockdown and it is being used by schools and many private players. 

"Most of the settings can be done by logging into users Zoom account on the website, or installed application at PC/Laptop/Phone and also during conducting a conference," the guidelines from MHA mentions.

Officials in the Home Ministry told IANS that the app has some specific weaknesses so it is necessary to avoid its use for official purposes as it can encrypt meeting data.

A report had recently claimed that  Zoom is also prone to hacking. The 'Zoom client for Windows' is vulnerable to the 'UNC path injection' vulnerability that could let remote attackers steal login credentials for victims' Windows systems, TheHacckeNews had reported.  

As businesses, schools and colleges and millions of SMBs use video conferencing tool Zoom during the work-from-home scenario, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had warned people about porn material being popped up during the video meetings. The Boston branch of the law enforcement agency had also said it received multiple reports of Zoom conferences being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language.