Dive Brief:
- Following weeks of scrutiny for privacy and security, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan is taking ownership of "missteps," he told CNN Sunday. The new users and use cases added in the last two weeks are "very different" from existing enterprise customers with IT teams, he said.
- Yuan reinforced the security suggestions the company posted on March 20 regarding "Zoom-bombers," or gate-crashers. "I think we have all the security features built in," but the company should've enforced and educated new customers as they were added, he said.
- While entities, including public schools, are hesitant to use the service after its security issues, Zoom is working with New York schools to prevent withdrawal from the platform, according to Yuan.
Dive Insight:
Zoom's popularity skyrocketed in the last month as the coronavirus outbreak forced workers to stay home. However, its overnight popularity put its flaws under a microscope.
"We doubled down, tripled down on security" in the last few weeks, according to Yuan. He wants Zoom to embody a security- and privacy-first company.
Following closer inspection by users and white hat hackers, legal entities, including the New York Attorney General and Federal Bureau of Investigation, started to show interest in Zoom's security and privacy practices.
From a security standpoint, Zoom's methods are similar to its other video conferencing competitors. However, in its security white paper, Zoom's definition of end-to-end encryption differs from reality. Zoom calls are encrypted using transport layer protection, a type of encryption favored by other video conferencing platforms. The caveat means Zoom could access a video's transcripts.
"Sharing specific types of data is allowed and common for many companies," Morten Brøgger, CEO of Wire, told CIO Dive. Providing the choice to opt-into data collection and sharing is where Zoom failed.
Last week, the company published an updated privacy policy after it was disclosed the company shared data with third parties, such as Facebook. The lack of transparency "deprived" users of consent, said Brøgger.
The privacy policy was followed by a letter from Yuan, where he told users the company was freezing features to focus on security and privacy. Over the weekend, Yuan told The Wall Street Journal he "really messed up" with meeting user expectations. The CEO said he has to work to regain trust because the coronavirus pandemic caused Zoom to move too fast.
Zoom's "chronic issues" with security, including a now-remediated flaw from last year that allowed bad actors to hijack webcams, said Brøgger. Collaboration platforms as a market could be using this time of mass adoption to put security first, so enterprises feel comfortable sharing sensitive information.
