Zoom isn’t malware, though Hackers are feeding that
By MYBRANDBOOK
It has been reported that daily traffic to the Zoom.us download page has increased by 535% in March 2020 alone. That's quite a statistic, as is the fact that in the same month there were more than 200 million daily Zoom meeting participants. A less positive Zoom-related number from March has been dropped into my inbox though: according to threat research analysts at Webroot, malicious files with "zoom" in their name jumped by 2,000% from the previous month.
Zoom has come in for a lot of media attention since the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a surge in working from home and a corresponding surge in usage of the video conferencing tool. Some of the most balanced and genuine reporting has been by my colleague and friend, Kate O'Flaherty, who has covered Zoom privacy and security issues in-depth. Unfortunately, there has also been a lot of reporting that has been genuinely misguided and some that are best described as almost hysterical. I have seen Zoom referred to as being malware on numerous occasions, for example. Here's the thing, Zoom is not malware, but hackers are feeding that delusion by exploiting its popularity. Between February and March, Webroot saw an increase above 2,000% when it comes to malicious files with zoom in the name.
According to Marcus Moreno, Manager of Threat Research at Webroot it is not surprising to see this trend. As with any major current event, malicious actors observe this as a lure opportunity. Indeed, Moreno went on to add that he expects "to see this trend continue not only for Zoom but also for any other platform or site that has seen an increase of traffic or use as a result of this pandemic." Indeed, Webroot threat research analyst Connor Madsen has reported that "adware variants have been found spoofing Microsoft’s Teams video conferencing while performing malicious activities in the background.”
Zoom, for its part, has been listening to what the cybersecurity community has been saying and responding to the undoubted privacy and security challenges that such unprecedented, and high profile, growth brings with it. Recent announcements have added better meeting controls, removed meeting IDs from the title toolbar display and a stalling of feature development so that the focus can be fully put onto security.
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