MHA Guidelines on Zoom Videoconferencing

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs issued a statement declaring the video meeting service, Zoom, as unsafe and also guidelines for videoconferencing.

Issues in Zoom

Security and privacy concerns have plagued the popular videoconferencing service since its launch in 2011 by Eric Yuan. While it has become a popular medium for conducting online lectures for students and for holding virtual meetings in firms amid the lockdown, several issues had been highlighted by CERT-In. There has been reports of e-mail leakage, lack of end-to-end encryption of calls, etc.

Zoombombing

Zoom bombing or Zoom raiding refers to the intrusion of uninvited participants in video conference calls. The term was derived from the increased number of such incidents on the teleconferencing application of Zoom. The shortcoming has been used by hackers and internet trolls in the past to post undesirable content during Zoom sessions.

MHA Guidelines

The MHA guidelines recommended the following:

• Users are to set new user ID and password for each session.
• Users are to enable the ‘Waiting Room’ feature so that a participant can enter the session only when the host allows it.
• Screen sharing must be done only by the session’s host.
• The feature that enables participants to re-join must be disabled.
• File sharing option must be restricted.
• Recording feature must be restricted.
• Once all participants have joined the meeting, the host is to lock the meeting.