Is Zoom App Safe In India!

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has proposed the Zoom app users that the video-conferencing application isn't secure for usage. The video meeting app has become quite popular across the world as more and more workers are now performing from home during the lockdown period. Several other countries have also expressed concern about the safety of the appliance. Germany, Singapore and Taiwan have already banned the appliance.

Is Zoom App safe to use?

"Zoom may be a not a secure platform," the Cyber Coordination Centre (CyCord) of the ministry of home affairs said during a new 16-page advisory.

The government’s advice appears after India's nodal cybersecurity agency – Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-in) - had alerted against the vulnerability of the app. The agency had approved that the app has significant weaknesses which may make users susceptible to cyber attacks, including leakage of sensitive. 

In the new report, MHA has requested users, who would yet wish to work with Zoom, to follow certain guidelines for safety purpose– including preventing unauthorized entry within the room, preventing an unauthorized participant to hold out malicious activity. The DOS (denial-of-service) attack is completed by hackers to form a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended user.

The government has reissued supplementary guidelines after multiple users have complained regarding instances of leaked passwords and hackers hijacking video calls between through conferences.

1. Create a new user ID and password for each meeting.
2. Create a waiting room in the app so that a user will be able to enter the meeting only when the host gives him permission.
3. Disable Join feature before hosting.
4. Allowing Screen sharing by Host only.
5. Disabling "Allow removed participants to re-join".
6. It is recommended to restrict or disable file transfer.
7. When all participants have joined, it has been advised to lock the meeting.
8. Restrict the recording feature.
9. To end meeting (not just leave, if you are an administrator).

The movement comes as several companies including Google, Apple, NASA, and Tesla have forced or warned their employees from utilising Zoom, which has amassed over 200 million users. German and Taiwan have also banned the utilization of concentrate their nations. The firm, with a market cap of over $40 billion, has come under scrutiny and become subject of a lawsuit after several of its security and privacy lapses emerged in recent weeks.

Zoom has been trending on app stores in India in recent weeks, too, while a surprise as enterprise services unusually get adhesion with consumers within the country. Several Indian ministers in India have also tweeted pictures that showed they were using concentrate recent weeks.