Zoom draws new scrutiny amid virus fallout

As Americans stay home due to the coronavirus pandemic, video conferencing group Zoom has seen a surge in use. But the uptick in business has exposed vulnerabilities in Zoom systems and painted a target on the company for both lawmakers and hackers.

Many have flocked to Zoom to hold everything from work meetings to happy hours, particularly as more and more countries enact stay-at-home orders that restrict people’s movements.

As a result, the company’s stocks have skyrocketed over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, and usage figures have boomed. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan is estimated to have made $4 billion in the past three months alone, according to Business Insider.

While a spokesperson for Zoom declined to comment on exactly how many people used the video conference tool in March, Yuan said during a press call last month that “we have seen a large increase in the number of free users, meeting minutes and new video use cases.”

But this week, the company was hit by multiple controversies, as increased use shined a spotlight on vulnerabilities that might have otherwise flown under the radar.

One new phenomenon is “Zoom bombing,” when hackers or other individuals access and disrupt a live meeting.

An example of this occurred during a virtual meeting of the Heman Sweatt Center for Black Males at the University of Texas this week when unknown users joined the meeting and shouted racist slurs to disrupt it.

And multiple Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in New York being held through Zoom were disrupted over the past week by individuals urging the participants to drink alcohol.

But Zoom keeps growing : Zoom announced this week that around 200 million daily meeting participants used its services in March as the coronavirus forced people to stay home, up from a maximum daily average of 10 million in December.

Yuan announced the spike in a blog post, saying usage had “ballooned overnight” to far surpass expectations. Around 90,000 schools in 20 countries were among those using Zoom as people worldwide have increasingly turned to the platform for everything from work meetings to happy hours.

“For the past several weeks, supporting this influx of users has been a tremendous undertaking and our sole focus,” Yuan wrote. “However, we recognize that we have fallen short of the community’s — and our own — privacy and security expectations. For that, I am deeply sorry.”

Yuan said the company “appreciated” the scrutiny from journalists and security experts in recent weeks, saying the concerns raised would “make Zoom better.”