{"id":844319,"date":"2020-07-10T02:00:41","date_gmt":"2020-07-10T07:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/\/"},"modified":"2020-07-09T22:25:15","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T03:25:15","slug":"cybersecurity-for-think-tanks-part-four-the-bright-and-dark-sides-of-zoom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/cybersecurity-for-think-tanks-part-four-the-bright-and-dark-sides-of-zoom\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybersecurity for think tanks part four: the bright and dark sides of Zoom"},"content":{"rendered":"

In mid-April, during a web event in our #DigitalThinkTanking series<\/a>, we surveyed thinktankers on which video-conferencing tools their think tank uses for online events. This is what we found:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In other words: an overwhelming majority of think tanks use Zoom.<\/p>\n

The results of our quick survey also seem to fit in with the global trend: Zoom surpassed many established video conferencing services like Microsoft\u2019s Skype, Cisco\u2019s Webex or Google\u2019s Hangouts in terms of popularity.<\/p>\n

In late March 2020, Twitter and social media feeds were suddenly full of screenshots showing Zoom work meetings, Yoga classes and after work beers online.<\/p>\n

Many policymakers jumped on the Zoom bandwagon too \u2013 especially in those countries where the public sector \u2018overslept\u2019 the digital transformation (for example, where labour laws regulating public officials and workspaces had not been updated in years to allow for remote work, or where there\u2019s no established or trustworthy way to cast votes remotely<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In the digital world it is often the tools that are particularly easy to use, that focus on a single task, and that have low barriers to entry, that attract a lot of users. Security is often an afterthought.<\/p>\n

Once user adaptation is widespread, network effects<\/a> kick in making it unattractive to use alternatives to the most popular option. This has been the case with Facebook, WhatsApp, and now Zoom. This network effect leads to a cascading effect<\/a>, meaning even more users and latecomers to digitisation \u2013 like governments \u2013 join \u00a0the platform too.<\/p>\n

With high popularity comes the bad guys<\/h2>\n

\u2018Zoombombing\u2019 \u2013 the practice of pranksters joining Zoom sessions without the password \u2013 soon became a thing.<\/p>\n

This was facilitated by a lack of awareness by new Zoom users. Posting screenshots of your meetings on Twitter that show the meeting ID allows anyone to join the call. This led the FBI in the US to issue a warning <\/a>that everyone should set up passwords for their meetings. And in the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson accidentally shared the Zoom Meeting ID<\/a> for a cabinet meeting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Source: Pippa Fowles\/10 Downing Street via Metro UK, 31 March 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Zoom trend did not go unnoticed by intelligence agencies either. Chinese state hackers allegedly began to target Zoom calls<\/a> of companies to siphon intellectual property. With more governments conducting day-to-day business via Zoom, this should not come as a surprise. The sudden popularity of the app made it worthwhile for intelligence agencies to invest time and resources to spy on digital meetings. Like most hackers, intelligence agencies tend to go where the users are, because the return on investment seems highest.<\/p>\n

The company Zoom actively contributed to this trend, as it made false promises about its security practices. A report by the Canadian Citizen Lab<\/a> uncovered that, although advertised on its website, Zoom did not use the industry gold standard of end-to-end encryption.<\/p>\n

Instead it relied on transport layer security (TLS), which has one important loophole: communication via two parties is only encrypted while in transit from each user to the server, but not while it is processed on Zoom\u2019s servers.<\/p>\n

Zoom uses intermediary servers sitting in between users to do audio processing and signal enhancing. This is essentially the key to Zoom\u2019s unmatched scalability and ability to host meetings with hundreds of participants, while maintaining excellent audio quality. The caveat is that this allows spying on sensitive conversations via these central servers.<\/p>\n

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Source: Matthias Schulze<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another contributing factor was Zoom\u2019s start-up heritage. Zoom is considered a unicorn company<\/a>, one of the few start-ups that become a successful multi-million business in just a few weeks.<\/p>\n

The standard slogan \u2018move fast and break things\u2019, that is still the prevalent mindset in the start-up culture, has the unfortunate downside of ill-security practices. Launching a limited product quickly is more important than the cumbersome and slow process of adding security during the design process.<\/p>\n

Zoom showed lots of signs of this sloppy approach to security: malware-like behaviour<\/a> of the Zoom client, unwanted data sharing with Facebook<\/a> and looming security vulnerabilities<\/a>. Zoom\u2019s CEO Eric Young was forced to publicly apologise <\/a>and in response promised a stronger focus on security in the future. Since then, the company certainly has upped its security game. For example, in June, Zoom announced that is working on end-to-end encryption<\/a>. But IT security is a marathon, not a sprint.<\/p>\n

Zoom\u2019s security blunders left many in governments and think tanks wondering how secure it is to use video conferencing tools. Some countries or government agencies outright banned<\/a> the use of Zoom, among them the US Senate, the German Foreign Ministry, NASA and the Australian Defence Force.<\/p>\n

Many of those who banned it refer to fears of Chinese cyber-espionage and, particularly in Europe, uncertainty about data being hosted on US servers and thus out of reach for the EU\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation (although it is now possible to choose Europe as a server location for Zoom<\/a>).<\/p>\n

If services are hosted on foreign servers there is always the risk that a company is forced to open up their systems for law enforcement or intelligence agencies (lawful access). That risk gained prominence in the debate about potential \u2018backdoors\u2019 in Huawei<\/a> 5G network equipment. However, the Snowden leaks<\/a> remind us that lawful interception and mandatory surveillance backdoors are being implemented in democratic countries too.<\/p>\n

Of course, Zoom is still a reasonable choice for some purposes and organisations. In part five<\/a> of this series, we go into more detail about how you can create safer spaces for sensitive policy conversations in terms of confidentiality and cybersecurity\u2026 including with Zoom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In mid-April, during a web event in our #DigitalThinkTanking series, we surveyed thinktankers on which video-conferencing tools their think tank uses for online events. This is what we found: In other words: an overwhelming majority of think tanks use Zoom. The results of our quick survey also seem to fit in with the global trend: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[220,2636,2640,2699,235],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}