Posted by Delhi: Zoom video conferencing app, according to the Indian government’s Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is not for use by government officers / official for official purposes.
The Cyber Coordination Centre (CyCord), under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has issued an advisory on the secure use of Zoom meeting platform by private individuals. This advisory states that the platform is not for use by Government officers/officials for official purposes.
The document refers to earlier advisories of the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team(Cert-In) and states that Zoom is not a safe platform. The guidelines have been issued to safeguard private individuals who would still like to use the platform for private purposes.
The broad objective of this advisory is to prevent any unauthorized entry into a Zoom Conference Room. And prevent unauthorized participant to carry out malicious attacks on the terminals of other users in the conference.
The details of protective measures to be taken by individuals may be accessed in the document link.
While the advisory is for private users in India, the MHA’s two-page advisory details out how private individuals can securely use Zoom.
Also, the 16-page document is a stepwise guide to securely configure the Zoom application and its usage.
Objective of security configurations:
- Setting new user ID and password for each meeting
- Enabling waiting room, so that every user can enter only when the host conducting meeting admits him
- Disabling join before host
- Allowing Screen Sharing by host Only
- Disabling “Allow removed participants to re-join”
- Restricting/disabling file transfer option (if not required)
- Locking meeting, once all attendees have joined
- Restricting the recording feature
- To end meeting (and not just leave, if you are an administrator)
Zoom Video Communications, Inc., also known as Zoom, is an American communications technology company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California.
It provides video, phone, and chat services through a cloud-based and peer-to-peer software platform.
The video conferencing platform has been under the scanner for the past some months due to weak security features, the incidents of data leaks and some calls routed to servers located in China, according to media reports.
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