Zoom Safely: Minimize the Risks

Last week I was shocked when a friend, a senior vice president of cybersecurity at a large media corporation, posted this on Facebook:

“Just don’t use Zoom. It is a cesspool of security and privacy issues…”

I took his warning seriously. He knows what he is talking about. This post is no April Fool’s joke.

However, today Zoom is a lifeline for many people and important to me personally. With a heart condition, diabetes, and being over 70, I had best stick close to home with COVID-19 in the air.

Everyone uses Zoom today. My daughter in law school attends classes on Zoom all day. My library friends get together on Zoom to share a beer and discuss books. My wife and I met with our realtor on Zoom yesterday.

I don’t expect folks to quit using Zoom, and I don’t plan to quit myself. It’s popular for good reason: it works well and is remarkably easy to use. In my old job as a software architect working with developers on every continent but Antarctica, I’ve used just about every online meeting platform frequently. Zoom is excellent, particularly for people for who can’t take time to learn complex and balky platforms. Which makes Zoom security and privacy issues all the more troubling.

Zoom has not been a paragon of responsibility in fixing security vulnerabilities. I won’t go into the details of what is wrong with Zoom. I might in a future post. Here, I will tell you how to minimize the risks.

Concerns

First, Zoom shares data with companies like Facebook and other data brokers. That is what it is. I don’t like it, but it’s part of the 21^st century. I believe we can and should do something to fix the data sharing digital economy, but nothing will happen overnight. I wish Zoom would just stop it, but I have little hope that they will until they are forced to. Their sharing pays for your free service. If it makes you feel better, Zoom is not the only offender; your data is probably already being bought and sold all over the network.

Second, Zoom meetings are subject to unwanted intruders and harassment. Louts sneak in and flash pornography and hate messages. They dominate chat sessions. Meetings, like town meetings or church and temple services, can turn into travesties and have to break up.

Third, less of a concern to individuals, Zoom is susceptible to denial of service attacks. Meetings can be overwhelmed with unwanted messages which tank performance.

Finally, Zoom emits digital pheromones that drive cats to walk over keyboards, hit keyboard shortcuts, and take over the screen.

What can you do about it?

There are a few steps you can take that will considerably improve Zoom experiences.

• View the Zoom video tutorials. They’re easy and worthwhile. Become a Zoom expert.
• Access Zoom through your web browser. Don’t install the Zoom app. Many of the ongoing problems have come from the app, so avoid it, at least until Zoom gets their house in order.
• Guard the Zoom meeting link and ID. If you are not conducting a public meeting, don’t make it public. (Boris Johnson, UK prime minister, tweeted a screen shot of a cabinet meeting with the meeting ID prominent. Don’t do that.)
• Zoom has a meeting password option. Use it when appropriate.
• Let Zoom generate a random meeting ID. You can put in your own meeting ID like “Joes-Dance-Party”. Trolls could guess the ID and slip in.
• Use Waiting Rooms to control entry to the meeting.
• Protect the screen sharing option. When setting up a meeting, you can restrict who can share and who can start sharing when someone else is sharing. Change these settings during a meeting by clicking on the down caret next to the “Share Screen” button at the bottom of the screen.
• Do not click on links in Zoom chats unless you trust the participant who posted the link.

Zoom is not perfect, but these are not perfect times.