Despite govt warning, Zoom sees 50% increase in usage

Chennai: Though the government recently said web conference solutions provider Zoom is not safe and it is not to be used for official purposes, the platform has witnessed increase in usage.

Zoom said it has now reached over 300 million daily meeting participants, a 50 per cent increase from the 200 million announced on 1 April. It also announced ‘robust security enhancements’ with the upcoming general availability of Zoom 5.0.

Zoom dubbed the initiative as a key milestone in the company’s 90-day plan to proactively identify, address, and enhance the security and privacy capabilities of its platform. By adding support for AES 256-bit GCM encryption, Zoom will provide increased protection for meeting data and resistance against tampering, it added.

‘This is just the beginning. We built our business by delivering happiness to our customers. We will earn our customers’ trust and deliver them happiness with our unwavering focus on providing the most secure platform,’ said Eric S. Yuan, CEO of Zoom.

The warning, earlier issued by Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In), was recently reiterated by the Cyber Coordination Centre (CyCord) of the Home Ministry in an advisory.

‘This advisory states that the platform is not for use by government officers/officials for official purposes,’ a statement from the Ministry said.
Zoom became a popular application for executives conducting meetings while working from home during the countrywide lockdown announced by the Central government to contain coronavirus pandemic in the country.

‘The document makes reference to earlier advisories of the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In) and states that Zoom is not a safe platform. The guidelines have been issued to safeguard private individuals who would still like to use the platform for private purposes,’ the Ministry said.

It said the advisory has been issued to prevent any unauthorised entry into a Zoom conference room and to prevent unauthorised participants to carry out malicious attacks on the terminals of other users in the conference.