Zoom Users – Read This

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Are you and your company using Zoom in this time of social distancing? I’ve certainly been using Zoom quite a bit more frequently due to working remotely.

An article was published on NPR.org today that cautioned against using Zoom due to the FBI receiving “multiple reports of conferences being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language.”

Quoted in the article, Patrick Wardle, a security researcher, states that Zoom was designed to “prioritize things other than privacy and security.”

Some steps you can take to limit the likelihood of hackers getting into your Zoom meetings include (taken from fbi.gov):

  • Do not make meetings or classrooms public. In Zoom, there are two options to make a meeting private: require a meeting password or use the waiting room feature and control the admittance of guests.
  • Do not share a link to a teleconference or classroom on an unrestricted publicly available social media post. Provide the link directly to specific people.
  • Manage screensharing options. In Zoom, change screensharing to “Host Only.”
  • Ensure users are using the updated version of remote access/meeting applications. In January 2020, Zoom updated their software. In their security update, the teleconference software provider added passwords by default for meetings and disabled the ability to randomly scan for meetings to join.
  • Lastly, ensure that your organization’s telework policy or guide addresses requirements for physical and information security.