Anyone with meeting’s URL can join, after which they’re free to post comments, pictures and videos at will. While up-to-date software is your first line of defence, another is to keep your meeting URL away from public forums such as Twitter. Third-party downloads may contain malware (software designed to cause harm).Ĭoronavirus could spark a revolution in working from home. If you get a prompt from Zoom to install updates, you should – but only if these updates are from Zoom’s own app and website, or via updates from Google Play or Apple’s App Store.

In January, Zoom issued a raft of security patches to fix some problems. Unlike social media platforms, it was not a service that had to engineer ways to manage the bad behaviour of users – until now. Zoom is primarily a corporate collaboration tool that allows people to collaborate without hindrance. And meetings can have up to hundreds, even thousands, of participants. Notes, images and diagrams can also be shared to collaborate on projects. Zoom is a cloud-based service that allows users to freely talk to and share video (if bandwidth allows) with others online. Platforms like Zoom, Microsoft’s Skype and others have stepped up to meet demand. With social distancing restriction, virtual meetings are now the norm everywhere. Video conferencing technology has matured in recent years, driven by massive demand even before COVID-19. Video conferencing is incredibly valuable The rest of the world needs to do this manually. Last week, Zoom upgraded security on its default settings, but only for education accounts. And while hosts can disable the screen share function, they’d have to be quick. The meeting’s host doesn’t need to grant permission for others to join. Gatecrashers may only have to try a handful of code combinations before successfully landing a victim. Working from home risks online security and privacy – how to stay protected

Joining one simply requires a standard Zoom URL, with an automatically generated nine-digit code at the end. The problem is that Zoom meetings lack password protection.

Zoom code to join