Home Ministry warns people against using Zoom video conference app

The government on Thursday has declared the Zoom meeting app as unsafe for video conference and issued a set of guidelines for the safety of private users who still wants to use the app.

Home Ministry issued an advisory over the use of the app and said, “Zoom is not a safe platform even for the usage of individuals a detailed advisory has already been issued by CERT-India.”

“The Zoom app has issues relating to privacy and as well as security,” NDTV quoted a senior official in the home ministry as saying.

The official further said that the servers of Zoom, like TikTok, are mostly located in China. The Centre maintains that the app has significant weaknesses and indulges in dubious practices.

The government said that the guidelines will prevent unauthorised entry in the conference room and even malicious activity by authorised participants on terminals of the other participants.

“Most of the settings can be done by login into users zoom account at the website, or installed application at PC/Laptop/Phone and also during the conduct of conference,” Home Ministry said in its guidelines.

With the lockdown being imposed since March 24, many private as well as government companies have resorted to ‘work from home’ option. It has enhanced the scope of video conference calls between the employees.

As per the reports, the famous zoom app has been used significantly by the companies for video conferencing. Experts said that the app encrypts the meeting data and its servers are mostly located in China.

The guidelines are mostly private-entity focused as the government organization use NIC (National Informatics Centre) platform to carry out video-conferences.

The warning and guidelines come after the national cyber-security agency Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-in) cautioned against the cyber vulnerability of the app.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)