Amid Security Concerns: to Zoom or not to Zoom?

By David Weldon for The Security Ledger
Tuesday, April 14, 2020

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But is banning the use of Zoom by employees an extreme measure? Perhaps, says Ilia Kolochenko, founder and chief executive officer at web security company ImmuniWeb, based in Geneva, Switzerland.

“I think it will only spur rapid proliferation of shadow IT, when employees will be deploying un-trusted solutions to communicate with their customers and will eventually exacerbate the situation,” Kolochenko says. “Framing and policing usage of Zoom makes a lot of sense, while a ban will likely lead to undesirable consequences.”

Employees at ImmuniWeb have been using the Zoom application for some time.

“Zoom and other platforms were always popular for meetings and calls when it was more practical to meet online then in person,” Kolochenko says. “COVID-19 shifted all possible meetings and discussions into the digital realm, thereby soaring the usage of Zoom.”

While ‘Zoom bombings’ are grabbing a lot of media and social media attention, Kolochenko believes fears are somewhat overblown.

“The most widespread and palpable security concerns as of today are Zoom bombing and vandalism, which are pretty innocent in terms of inflicted damage,” Kolochenko notes.

“Many controversies now exist around Zoom’s security and privacy, though it is extremely far from dominating the plethora of emerging security risks,” Kolochenko says. “Few attackers will ever both to intercept Zoom communications, even fewer will extract any value from the alleged data sharing with Facebook. Instead, they will bet on the skyrocketing number of poorly configured VPNs and RDP technologies, abandoned servers and unprotected cloud storage, exposed databases and shadow IT resources that widely open the door to companies’ crown jewels.”

And the added scrutiny of Zoom doesn’t mean that competing platforms don’t also harbor serious security flaws, security experts note. Read Full Article