Why Zoom?

The recent coronavirus pandemic is forcing people to isolate themselves and maintain minimal interactions with others. However, there are many essential functions like school, government, and healthcare that require collaboration. Almost everyone who can is telecommuting, and many have turned to Zoom for their virtual meetings. 

In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, Zoom’s simple usability and one-click meetings made it the go-to platform for teleconferencing, causing its user base to explode from 10 million to 200 millions in just a few months. While none of this sounds nefarious yet, the sum is greater than its parts.

The 20x uptick in users and use in critical sectors makes Zoom an enormous target. Its usability-centric design means that there are minimal barriers to joining a call, and now millions of people are bored at home and very familiar with its use. What could go wrong?

Zoom-bombing

Since large numbers of people have begun using Zoom, reports of video-teleconferencing hijacking (also called “Zoom-bombing”) are emerging nationwide. Zoom-bombing is when unwanted users join and disrupt an ongoing call. The FBI has received multiple reports of conferences being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language. Schools, colleges, businesses, and all levels of government have fallen victim to meeting hijackings. Who are these trolls? Elite hackers? Russian misinformers? No, they can be anyone. From bored highschoolers to hatemongers or ideological extremists. Zoom-bombing has become such a widespread problem that the FBI released a how-to guide for preventing these cyberattacks, suggesting users restrict screen-share settings, password protect all meetings and avoid posting about gatherings on social media.

Most of the bombed meetings were posted publicly. Using basic Google dorks, prebuilt search terms to find specific information, anyone with an internet connection can easily find and join meetings that are posted publicly. 

So why is everyone using Zoom if its security is so lax? The answer: Because Zoom’s security is so lax.

No one likes jumping hurdles. If you give someone the option to set up a video call in 20 clicks vs just one click, which do you think they’ll choose? What would you choose? It’s in our nature to prefer the simplest solution. In times of crisis, many problems can confront us at once and we only have so much bandwidth to deal with all of it. The simplest solution to an immediate need seems like the best way to go, right? 190 million new users chose Zoom, not because it was the most secure option, but because it got out of their way and let them do what they needed.

Our desire for ease of use incentivizes companies to remove as many steps as possible because unnecessary extra steps are viewed as user barriers. If there are too many perceived barriers to a user, they’ll choose a different platform.  

Zoom actually has many security controls to lock down calls, but they’re turned off by default because most users don’t want to deal with them. The Zoom-bombing epidemic is easily mitigated using the waiting room, meeting passwords, invite-only meetings, and participant locking. As many continue transitioning to online lessons and meetings, its recommended that you exercise due diligence and caution in your cybersecurity efforts.