Apr 9 Tech Industry. Stuck at home, then you’re probably spending half of your waking hours on zoom calls. But if you wanna keep your meetings and importantly your chats private, then there’s a few things you should do right now. At the end of , they had 10 million users by March That went up to million users. But zoom has also had its fair share of issues. And I’m not talking about the terrible camera angles on calls.

People spying on your calls, zoom sharing your personal information without you knowing about it. And something that I just learned. You’re not the only person who can see your chats. Okay, let’s start with the basics.

There are a few different flavors have plans. The free or basic plan is pretty much for regular users. It lets you do things like host calls, set up video chats and do group meetings with a meeting ID. Anyone who has that ID can access the call whether they’re coming in through a browser, the app or just by dialling in.

But when you start getting into paid plans, that’s when you get a lot more features. There are no time limits on calls. You can have way more people in the calls and most importantly you can record meetings. And that’s where things start to get interesting. They get a folder at the end with the video of the meeting audio, as well as all of the public chat messages that were sent, saved as plain text.

Not only that, but those chats can be viewed by your Zoom admin, so your boss, even if they weren’t on the call. Now, this doesn’t include private chats but if you record a meeting with a colleague and everything you say on public is saved. And it could come back to haunt you. This is why it’s not a good idea to use your work or your school’s email account for social calls. If you hit the record button, then those public chats stay around 30 days and your admin can see everything.

It’s probably a good idea to just set up a separate free account free social calls. And then you can trash talk, or you’re like Tell me about it. What a moron But your boss or your teacher isn’t the only one who can say what you’re up to on Zoom calls and that’s where Zoom bombing comes in. Now this is where someone finds your personal meeting ID and use it to break into a zoom call uninvited, potentially flooding the call with graphic images at the same time.

Now it security issues like this that have led some school districts to ban the use of zoom for virtual teaching. That’s why you should never share your personal meeting ID online and why you should use a password just to make sure strangers can’t come in uninvited. Users will be prompted to update the app and that once the update is finished, “the local web server will be completely removed on that device.

The update will also supposedly improve the uninstall procedure. We look forward to seeing if Jonathan Leitschuh and other security researchers think Zoom’s doing a thorough and proper job. To safeguard your Mac until that update, open Settings for Zoom — click Zoom in the menu bar, then click Settings — and open the Video section.

Then check the box next to “Turn off my video when joining a meeting. In his post opens in new tab , Leitschuh also shared code for use in the Terminal. Those instructions get a bit complicated and are best for the super-tech savvy users who would prefer it. Those tips are made to eradicate the web server that Zoom creates on the Mac. Leitschuh explained that he tried to work with Zoom, reaching out to the company this past March, but that its “solutions were not enough to fully protect their users.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, even those users who have uninstalled Zoom from their Macs are vulnerable. Leitschuh explains that the web server installed by Zoom stays behind even after you remove the program, and that the server can be remotely triggered to update and automatically install the latest version of Zoom. Oh, and a victim doesn’t even need to even be tricked into opening a web page. First off, Vimeo user ‘fun jon’ opens in new tab posted video evidence that you can attack this flaw via email, and the target doesn’t even need to open the message.

They just need to be using an email client app that downloads the maliciously coded message. After Leitschuh argued with Zoom, alleging telling the company that “allowing a host to choose whether or not a participant will automatically join with video” is a “standalone security vulnerability,” the company disagreed, positioning its decision as pro-user: “Zoom believes in giving our customers the power to choose how they want to Zoom. Zoom also released a blog post arguing its side of the story.

Foreign Intelligence Agents Are Using Zoom to Spy on Americans: TIME.The Zoom App Is Spying On You..a Serious Vulnerability

 
Want to see who your child has conferences with? uMobix’s Zoom spy feature lets you easily track Zoom, including video calls and private messages. Zoom privacy risks: The video chat app could be sharing more information than you think. Zoom makes video chatting with colleagues easy, but you.