Zoom Leaking User Informaition to Strangers
| Zoom Leaking User Informaition to Strangers | |
|---|---|
| Short Title | Zoom App Leaks Personal Information to Strangers Including Contact and Photo |
| Location | Global |
| Date | April 2020 |
| Solove Harm | Disclosure, Insecurity, Intrusion |
| Information | Identifying, Contact, Physical Characteristics |
| Threat Actors | Zoom |
| Individuals | |
| Affected | Zoom Users |
| High Risk Groups | |
| Tangible Harms | Inconvenience |
Since many people had to switch to remote work communication due to COVID19 quarantine in spring 2020, Zoom app became very popular. However, it was found to be leaking out personal information of users to strangers.
Description
In the spring of 2020 many people had to switch to remote communication due to COVID19 quarantine. Zoom’s video conferencing software has soared in popularity because of that.
But in April 2020 is was found to be leaking personal information of at least thousands of users, including their email addresses and photos, and giving strangers the ability to attempt to start a video call with them through Zoom.
Some users said, for example, they subscribed and were able to see 995 people unknown to them with their names, images and mail addresses.Disclosure
If one subscribes to Zoom with a non-standard email provider (e.g. not Gmail or Hotmail or Yahoo etc.), then one gets insight to all subscribed users of that provider: their full names, their mail addresses, their profile picture (if they have any) and their status.Insecurity And one can video call them, which can be interpreted as Intrusion.
Zoom’s privacy violations don’t end just with those mentioned above. The company has had to contend with one controversy after another. First, the Zoom app on iOS was found to be sending analytics data to Facebook . Besides that, some of Zoom recorded video meetings were found available online.
Laws and Regulations
Sources
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7e95m/zoom-leaking-email-addresses-photos
https://themarkup.org/ask-the-markup/2020/06/02/what-does-the-covid-19-pandemic-mean-for-medical-data-privacy