Zoom App not safe: MHA warns people not to use it for video conference

April 16: Amidst nationwide lockdown, many have taken resort to Zoom App for video conferencing. There has been a substantial rise in the download and use of Zoom App in India. Many are using it to video chat with near and dear ones, while some are using it for official purposes. Many teachers are using Zoom App to take online classes during the lockdown. However, the ministry of home affairs has issued an advisory stating that video conferencing app Zoom is “not safe”.

Government’s nodal cyber-security agency CERT-India also issued an advisory that said, ”Zoom is a not a safe platform and advisory of CERT-IN on the same dated Feb 06, 2020, and March 30, 2020, may kindly be referred. “Zoom is not a safe platform even for usage of individuals a detailed advisory has already been issued by CERT-India,” the home ministry said in a new advisory.

It asks private people who would like to use Zoom to follow certain guidelines – including preventing unauthorized entry in the conference room, preventing an unauthorized participant to carry out malicious activity on the terminals of others and avoiding DOS attack by restricting users through passwords and access grant. A DOS (denial-of-service) attack is done by hackers to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended user (s).