500,000 Zoom IDs, Passwords Being Sold At 15 Paisa On Dark Web; This Bank Has Banned Zoom!

With the extended lockdown in the Coronavirus pandemic has pushed people to work from home and conduct meetings via video conferencing. 

During this time, it’s no surprise that apps like Zoom witnessed a massive surge in usage.

What About The Security?

But, along with popularity, Zoom has been the target of controversies over security issues.

As per the latest reports, over half a million Zoom accounts are available on the dark web for less than a cent each. 

Another issue is, Zoom Bombing, which is basically crashing a digital meeting has also become quite common. 

Recently, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan admitted that some calls were erroneously routed via China.

How Does It Affect?

As an effect, several companies and organisations have now started asking their employees to stop using video conferencing services such as Zoom and Google Hangouts to communicate.

Below are the companies that have banned using Zoom.

First and foremost, Google has banned Zoom for all its employees, and they have been asked to use the company’s Duo service.

Next one is Standard Chartered, which has become the first major bank that has asked its employees to stop using Zoom.

Apart from that Elon Musk-led SpaceX has banned its employees from using Zoom.

There are many Government organisations that also have banned Zoom.

For instance, Taiwan banned the use of Zoom for all the government agencies.

Next, the German Foreign Ministry has restricted the usage of Zoom to only emergency situations in personal computers.

Apart from them, the Australian Defence Force has banned the use of Zoom after a comedian Zoom bombed its meeting.

Also, NASA has banned all its employees from using Zoom.

The United States Senate also advised its members to use platforms other than Zoom.

Further, Singapore banned schools from using Zoom after obscene images appeared on screen during a geography lesson.

Next is New York City banned schools from using Zoom citing security concerns.

Apart from Zoom, Standard Chartered also banned Google Hangouts for its employees.

What Does Zoom Say?

As per the reports, the hackers are selling over 5,00,000 Zoom accounts on the dark web and hacker forums for less than a penny each, and in some cases, for free according to a recent report by web platform Bleeping Computer.

Further the Bleeping computer in the report said that they had first been informed of these accounts being posted on said platforms by cybersecurity intelligence firm Cyble who started noticing the posts around April 1.

After that, the firm had reached out to the sellers who had put up the account for sale and had bought credentials for 530,000 Zoom accounts at $0.0020 (approximately ? 0.15) for a single account in an attempt to warn the customers of the breach.

Moreover, in a statement to BleepingComputer, Zoom had said that the company is already working on finding these password dumps to reset affected users’ passwords, the report said.