Zoom application not safe for people and organizations: MHA

New Delhi : The Ministry of Home Affairs on Thursday issued an advisory claiming that video-conferencing Zoom application is not safe.

The advisory from MHA came after the national cyber-security agency - Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-in) cautioned against the cyber vulnerability of the popular app.

The latest advisory issued by the government's Cyber Coordination Centre or CyCord is for private individuals. The government officials have been asked not to use any third party app and services for holding meetings. CyCord portal was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2018 for sharing all cyber related matters amongst law enforcement agencies and government organizations and other stakeholders.

The advisory also mentioned a set of precautions which must be taken while using the application so that you and your data remains safe. The guidelines include, preventing unauthorized entry in the conference room, preventing an unauthorized participant to carry out malicious activity on the terminals of others and avoiding DOS attack by restricting users through passwords and access grant.

In an interview with CNN last week, Zoom's CEO Eric S Yuan said, "We moved too fast…and we had some missteps," adding that the company has learnt its lessons and "we have taken a step back to focus on privacy and security".