Zoom confirms it missed this major security milestone
In the past 90 days Zoom has enhanced its bug bounty program, conducted penetration tests and more
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
During the early stages of the pandemic,video conferencing softwaresaw record downloads though no company experienced the massive growth and influx of new users thatZoomdid.
The sudden and increased demand on the company’s systems was unlike anything most companies have ever experienced which is why Zoomturned to Oracle Cloudin addition to AWS to help meet this surge in demand. However, privacy and security concerns were a constant issue, forcing company’s CEO Eric S. Yuan to promise more transparency and announce a90-day freezeon all new features not related to privacy, safety or security back in April.
Marking the end of this 90-day program Yuan released a newblog postreflecting on the changes and improvements the company made during that time, including conducting a comprehensive review of its systems with third-party experts, preparing a transparency report, enhancing its bug bounty program, launching a CISO council, conducting white box penetration tests and hosting a weekly webinar to provide privacy and security updates to its community.
However Zoom has missed its own deadline for providing information on exactly how many requests for user data it has received - instead saying it will reveal this “later this year”.
Security and privacy review
During its 90-day program, Zoom worked with a group of third-party experts to review and make enhancements to its products, practices and policies. The company also launched aCISOcouncil composed of 36 CISOs from SentinelOne, Arizona State University, HSBC, Sanofi and other organizations. The CISO council has met four times over the past three months and advised Zoom on a number of important matters including regional data center selection, encryption, meeting authentication and features such as Report a User, Passwords and Waiting Rooms.
Zoom also worked to enhance its currentbug bounty programby developing a Central Bug Repository that aggregates vulnerability reports from HackerOne, Bugcrowd and security@zoom.us. The company also hired a Head of Vulnerability and Bug Bounty, several additional appsec engineers and it is in the process of hiring more security engineers.
Zoom asked multiple firms including Trail of Bits, NCC Group and Bishop Fox to review its entire platform. These organizations looked at Zoom’s production environment, its core web application and corporate network and its public API for its mobile and desktop clients.
Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter
Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!
While the 90-day feature freeze may be over for Zoom, Yuan says privacy and security are ongoing priorities for the company, and the steps it has taken could serve as a guideline for any organization looking to improve the privacy and security of its platform.
After working with the TechRadar Pro team for the last several years, Anthony is now the security and networking editor at Tom’s Guide where he covers everything from data breaches and ransomware gangs to the best way to cover your whole home or business with Wi-Fi. When not writing, you can find him tinkering with PCs and game consoles, managing cables and upgrading his smart home.
This new phishing strategy utilizes GitHub comments to distribute malware
Should your VPN always be on?
Red One isn’t perfect but it proves we need more action-packed Christmas movies
