Meanwhile, hosts should take advantage of the Waiting Rooms feature, as well as using strong passwords and avoiding sharing meeting links, says ESET cybersecurity specialist Jake Moore. “The less apps and accounts you have, the smaller the chance of your devices and data being compromised.” “A general security best practice is to only install apps and create user accounts when strictly necessary,” says security professional John Opdenakker. Participants don’t need to create a Zoom account, so avoid doing so if you can. Zoom’s improving its security all the time, but you should still approach it with caution for anything too private and consider an alternative such as Signal, FaceTime or Jitsi.Īnd there are other things you can do to improve your security on Zoom as a host or participant, such as limiting the number of accounts you create. We know that sounds somewhat paranoid, but better safe than sorry.” MORE FROM FORBES Zoom Alternatives: 5 Options For People Who Care About Security And Privacy By Kate O'Flaherty General Zoom security tips “Choose a device with next to no personal information. “Let it be your secondary smartphone or, say, a spare laptop,” Kaspersky says. If this does happen, Kaspersky advises you to limit the number of devices on which Zoom is installed to just one.

If you want to use the web interface, Zoom sometimes just goes ahead and downloads the installer, and you have to install the app. If you do have to use the app, you should always go to Zoom’s official site to download the Mac or Windows app, or the Google Play Store or Apple App Store for mobile devices.

In March, Kaspersky security researcher Denis Parinov found the number of malicious files incorporating the names of popular video conference services including Zoom had roughly tripled compared with the previous year. MORE FROM FORBES Facebook Users Beware: Here's Why Messenger Rooms Is Not Actually That Private By Kate O'Flaherty Fake Zoom apps and one annoying catchĪnother issue is, there are a ton of fake Zoom apps around which are actually dangerous malware. However, he points out that Zoom reacted quickly and fixed previous vulnerabilities, meaning it’s likely the firm would do the same again. “At the moment, there aren't any known issues with the Zoom app, but that could all change overnight, and there will likely be more issues found at some point,” says security researcher Sean Wright. “Criminals are always on the lookout to exploit any vulnerabilities they can find,” Emm says. And the fact that Zoom is adding users so rapidly makes it a bigger target than most.

Zoom app down for laptop