Alphabet Inc’s Google on Wednesday banned Zoom video conferencing application from its employees’ laptops, citing security concerns. “Recently, our security team informed employees using Zoom Desktop Client that it will no longer run on corporate computers as it does not meet our security standards for apps used by our employees,” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said.
Google will still allow the use of Zoom through mobile apps and browsers, he added. The app, owned by Zoom Video Communications Inc, is facing a backlash from users worried about the lack of end-to-end encryption of meeting sessions and “zoombombing”, where uninvited guests crash into meetings.
Zoom shot to popularity over the past few months by virtue of the coronavirus pandemic. With more and more people working from home, Zoom's free to use video conferencing service, coupled with a feature set that allowed adding of up to 50 participants as well as sharing screens and recording meetings, meant that it was a perfect fit for practically any industry. However, the past couple of weeks have underlined a startlingly high number of security and privacy issues with the app, and despite its founder Eric Yuan's apologies and assurances, Zoom seems very difficult to be trusted. It is this that is now leading to alternate video calling applications, most of which have been around for longer and are better known in general, seeing more downloads.
With inputs from Reuters
Comments
0 comment