Zoom is ‘sorry’ for privacy and security blunders, promises to fix things

Zoom, the videoconferencing app that became an overnight sensation at a time when many people around the globe are at home due to the coronavirus outbreak, has had a rough couple of weeks. 

While Zoom’s popularity skyrocketed, a slew of privacy and security issues with various aspects of the software emerged, some of them quite dangerous. 

Now, Zoom is taking the steps to remedy this. In a lengthy blog post, Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan apologized for the issues and said the company will now direct its efforts into fixing them. 

“We recognize that we have fallen short of the community’s — and our own — privacy and security expectations. For that, I am deeply sorry,” he wrote.

In the post, Yuan explained that the app’s maximum daily number of users went from 10 million in December to 200 million in March, putting tremendous strain on the company to scale the service up in order to accommodate the new users. Additionally, Zoom’s user base expanded from primarily institutional customers to a “much broader set of users,” which presented Zoom with “challenges” the company “did not anticipate when the platform was conceived.”

He outlines some of the steps the company has already undertaken to fix the mounting security and privacy problems, including preventing Zoom iOS client from sending data to Facebook for no good reason, fixing a bug which allowed an attacker to retrieve other users’ Windows login credentials, clarifying the nature of encryption on its platform and updating its privacy policy.

Perhaps even more importantly, Zoom has committed to spend the next 90 days proactively working on potential security issues. The company won’t release any new features during this period, instead directing all its efforts into strengthening security, and it will work with third party experts to identify potential issues. Furthermore, Zoom the company will release a transparency report, detailing “information related to requests for data, records or content.”

The steps Zoom is taking are good and necessary in order to regain customers’ trust. Its software gained popularity because it worked better than most competitors, and hopefully the company’s new efforts will bring the security and privacy aspects of it up to speed as well.