Founder and CEO Yuan statement admitting calls routing through China, flags alert to many private and Govt on using ZOOM
Mumbai: The Data security researchers claim of breach of security in the video conferencing app ZOOM. The Indian Armed Forces have alerted and asked its personnel “NOT TO INSTALL” and ” USE” the videoconferencing – ZOOM app.
The ZOOM CEO Eric Yuan admitted in his statement in the last week that to mistakenly routing calls routing via China. After which all the security agencies in India have sounded red- alert on “not using the ZOOM App”.
The reports claim that hackers are hacking into private chat rooms with the intention for selling of user data. The ZOOM calls are not end to end encrypted which means the video calls could be recorded or accessed by anyone with having access to the server.
Interestingly, the Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on April 1, interacted on this ZOOM with Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat on twitter he later posted the pictures.
However, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi is videoconferencing through the National Informatics Centre (NIC) of the government of India.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, ZOOM’s popularity has surged hugely in the countries under lockdown. In the aftermath of the outbreak of coronavirus, government and private sectors are engaged from work from home with ‘ ZOOM Video Communications’.
Although the app is currently among India’s three most downloaded, having a download of about 10 millions in past two weeks. Indian Armed Forces are the world’s second largest having 1.4 active personnel.
“We have been asked not to use ZOOM for videoconferencing, a host of privacy concerns have been raised in having any virtual meetings on ZOOM app. The app is facing criticism and definitely Coronavirus is a serious pandemic threat and social distancing can achieve to stop its spread in community but nothing at the cost of breach of security,” a source confided on the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Defence.
Authorities in Singapore, the US Senate and the German foreign ministry have barred the use of ZOOM.
Google has also asked its employees to stop using ZOOM.– By Santoshee Gulabkali Mishra
