Zoom(ZM) that has gained immense popularity among the enterprises, SMBs and schools in India and elsewhere to connect remotely during the lockdown. Zoom Video Communications Inc.’s stock jumped 81% in its debut on the public market
Shares of the videoconferencing company began trading on the Nasdaq at $65 apiece. Zoom had priced its initial public offering at $36, raising $751 million. ZM shares have soared nearly 100% in 2020 as investors clamor for stay-at-home stocks.
That would have valued the business at $9.2 billion, about nine times its private valuation. Shares were expected to price between $33 and $35 apiece. Its fast growth has drawn attention to the eight-year-old company, which was founded by Eric Yuan, the former vice president of engineering at Webex, a company CISCO Systems, acquired way back in 2007.
The coronavirus has forced many people to stay at home and businesses to shift to remote working, if possible. This environment has seen millions of people start to use Zoom for both work and school, as well as for chatting with family and friends.
Founder and CEO Eric Yuan wrote said, the usage of Zoom has ballooned overnight.” He noted that “as of the end of December last year, the maximum number of daily meeting participants, both free and paid, conducted on Zoom was approximately 10 million.” This figure skyrocketed to “more than 200 million daily meeting participants, both free and paid,” in March.
There were certain incidents heard on, where the hackers had posted pornographic content on the user screens of video conferencing app Zoom, shows us how cybercriminals are working overtime to find vulnerabilities and steal user data. In such a situation, it is vital that communication platforms support end-to-end encryption and multi-factor authentication to avoid such untoward incidents.
Issues that have affected its credibility is data-sharing with Facebook, exposed LinkedIn profiles, and a “malware-like” installer for macOS. The fact is Zoom had failed to disclose some vulnerabilities and that the services did not provide end-to-end encryption
Zoom has started facing criticism as reports of “Zoombombing” and other privacy issues started surfacing from different parts of the world. Zoom Founder and CEO Eric Yuan has apologized for the privacy and security issues or Zoombombing being reported in his app.
The vulnerabilities – everything from webcam or microphone security to sensitive data like passwords, emails, or device information – are being sold on the Dark Web. There are also news received Hacker Selling Zoom App User Data on Dark Web for As Low As $5,000 to to $30,000 (Rs 23 lakh approx.).
Singapore has suspended the use of video-conferencing tool Zoom by teachers after “very serious incidents” in the first week of a coronavirus lockdown that has seen schools move to home-based learning.
Zoom was deeply upset to hear about the incidents and was “committed to providing educators with the tools and resources they need on a safe and secure platform”, the firm’s chief marketing officer, Janine Pelosi, said in an email. It has also recently changed settings for education users to enable virtual waiting rooms and ensure that only hosts can share their screens by default, she added.
The vulnerabilities being sold on the dark web include glitches in security ranging from webcam to microphone security issues, which hackers can use to gain access to sensitive data including passwords, emails, or device information.
Zoom had garnered over 200 million users in March. The company has recently been served with another class-action lawsuit by one of its shareholders. The lawsuit claims that the shareholder had lost money after the company “overstated” its security measures leading its share prices to tank, as per a TechCrunch report.
Earlier this month, Zoom CEO Eric S Yuan had said that the platform will now be focusing all its resources on improving “safety, and privacy” on its platform for the next 90 days.
The company has also roped in former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos to advise them on security and privacy concerns after facing a global backlash .
