After getting bombarded for security lapses, the viral video conferencing app Zoom is addressing users' concerns. The company had put a 90-day freeze on rolling out new features to the app in order to focus on the privacy and security issues at hand. Twenty days later, we are already starting to see Zoom address the privacy issues, which put the app under scrutiny despite its soaring success.
Zoom is rolling out a new update, Zoom 5.0, to fix the issues that put the app in hot waters. From just 10 million users back in December to a whopping 200 million users in March, Zoom's success story was applauded, but there was a fair share of negative spotlight that cast a dark shadow. Seeing Zoom working its way up by listing to the feedback and addressing the issues, it's only a matter of time the app is once again everyone's favourite.
Zoom 5.0 update: What's new?
Zoom video conferencing app had many flaws. Some of which so vile that hackers were bombarding video conferences with porn and racist content. To address the seriousness of "Zoombarding," Zoom has come up with the following changes:
- Zoom has a new security icon that clubs all the security features in the app for easy access.
- Users can enable passwords by default while IT admins can define the complexity of the passwords for Zoom business users.
- Zoom's basic, single-licence Pro and education accounts get waiting room feature by default, which puts participants in a virtual waiting room before they are allowed in a meeting.
- Zoom upgraded its encryption to AES 256-bit GCM standard, which is not end-to-end encryption, but it is better than before.
- Business customers now control which data centre regions will handle meeting traffic. This addresses concerns that meeting traffic was routed through Chinese servers.
- Users can now quickly lock meetings, remove participants and restrict screen sharing and chatting in meetings.
"This takes our security features, existing and new, and puts them front and center for our meeting hosts. With millions of new users, this will make sure they have instant access to important security controls in their meetings," Oded Gal, CPO of Zoom, said in a statement.
These changes are not everything, but definitely a promising start for Zoom users.
