Zoom disabled the file-sharing feature in its popular
application after it found an undisclosed vulnerability that was endangering
the security and privacy of the users.
As the COVID-19 pandemic started to spread throughout the
world, people and companies turned to existing teleconference software to keep
employees connected. And Zoom seemed to get the whole spotlight, mostly because
it was easy to use and offered free, albeit limited, access to anyone who
needed it.
Although the attention was a bonanza for the company, it
brought intensified scrutiny and investigations. Before long, all kinds of
issues started to pop up, on practically on all the available platforms. It
started with data leaked to Facebook
and ended with attackers being able to control the camera and microphone on macOS.
One measure announced by the Zoom developers was to stop adding
new features to the platform, focusing entirely on security reports, either
from the community or their internal team. One of the first “victims” of this
audit was the file-sharing option, which was disabled by the team after they
found a vulnerability.
“All of our resources are focused on looking in every
corner, looking at every line of code, looking at every feature to make sure
there aren’t any security or privacy issues, and we found a potential security
vulnerability with file sharing, so we disabled that feature,” said
Zoom founder and CEO Eric S. Yuan.
“If there is any conflict between our features and our
user’s privacy and security, privacy and security come first.”
The details of the vulnerability were not made public, but
that might change after the company patches it. In the past couple of days, the
Zoom team also added
a new Security button that lets users quickly access all relevant options from
a single place.