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Zoom

Zoom Freezes the Release of Any New Feature as Its Security Is At Stake

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In 2011, Eric Yuan founded Zoom as a way out for professionals to conduct the meetings. When he created the app, it wasn’t meant for a very broad user interface. Though many people mostly professionals used it for business meetings and such, the recent demand grew unexpectedly.

Last year, Zoom witnessed around 10 million Zoom meetings daily. But, after the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom now successfully holds 200 million meetings every day. The company didn’t expect a sudden rise in the number of users which led to some malfunctioning of the app. The chief executive of Zoom said that they weren’t ready for such a large number of users. This is the main reason why the security system has become vulnerable. But, the company is trying to repair all the glitches at the earliest.

Both parties are facing problems

Before the outbreak of novel coronavirus, Zoom worked fine. The company didn’t see it coming and now it has shaken the security system. After the coronavirus has caused lockdown in almost every part of the world, most people are using zoom. From attending the business meeting to attending college lectures, Zoom is now the platform for every social interaction.

The company needed time to absorb the sudden load. But, it seems to have fallen even though they worked around the clock and tried to keep things together. Eric said that he is extremely sorry and trying to resolve the glitch as soon as possible. And, till then there will be a 90 days freeze for any new features that Zoom planned to release.

Working with a weak security system is not easy. A user’s privacy is also getting compromised which has led to rising allegations against Zoom. Some of the issues that the users are raising are sending user data to Facebook, claiming that the app has end-to-end encryption, etc. The tension has increased even more when Patrick Waddle discovered a major flaw in the app. It has especially made Mac users vulnerable to webcams and microphones.

The introduction of the Automated Tool

Yesterday, security professional, Trent Lo and members of SecKC announced about inventing a program, zWarDial. The program is designed in such a way that it can guess Zoom IDs with a length of 9 to 11 digits. And, IDs of 100 such Zoom meeting can be found within an hour and 2,400 meetings in a single day. Once these IDs are scanned, any relevant information about the meetings will be easily available.

The data will provide information about the date, time, organizer, and topic of the meeting. And, the main reasons why the tool can easily discover these meetings are they aren’t password protected. The developers have put this scenario in front of Zoom asking them to look into the matter. Because there might be high chances that password-by-default is malfunctioning.

But, it is confirmed that zWarDial cannot seek information about the password-protected meetings. So, for the time being, Zoom is requesting every user to password-protect their meetings. Since last year, the company has enabled the feature of the default password unless the admin opts out. If the users want to use their passwords they can go to the Zoom app and do the needful. But, either way, the meetings should be password protected due to the sudden rise in zoombombing, leaking information, etc.

What is Zoombombing?

Zoombombing is referred to as the illegal practice of joining a Zoom meeting without the admin’s permission. The uninvited guests are not only joining the Zoom meetings but also abusing other members, promoting pornography, making racists comments, etc. It is easy for these people to find the links from social media or they just simply guess the 9-digit ID for the meeting. But, this problem doesn’t arise if the meeting is password protected.

Steps were taken to combat it

Eric has taken many steps responding to the rising privacy breach through Zoom meetings. The platform is working to improve its encryption practices and especially remove the code that can share information from the IOS app to Facebook. Eric is also giving priority to the concerning issue for the people using Mac. And, apart from freezing the release of any features for the next 90 days, other steps are taken as well. Such as the company will also prepare a transparency report on data requests and will provide security updates weekly.

skype

As Microsoft’s Skype Falters, Zoom Rises to the Occasion

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With two weeks still left to go to end the nation-wide lockdown, people all around the country are relying on video-calling apps to communicate. As the novel coronavirus continues its dominant surge across North America and Europe, most of the world’s countries have gone into a nation-wide shutdown. With curfews in place, bans on gatherings and public transport, most people are confined to their homes. Since a majority of the world’s population is now sitting idly in their houses, applications that help in communicating are seeing a surge in demand. As we cannot go out to meet and socialize, apps that allow us to do so digitally are being used round the clock to beat boredom. Whether it is to play a game of UNO or have a group video-call, these apps are slowly taking over our smartphones. Skype and Zoom are the two most popular video-calling options available right now, and here’s a look at how one has faltered, while the other has surged.

Skype Vs Zoom

If this pandemic had occurred in 2011, the entire world would have been on Skype, calling, chatting and talking to their loved ones. Unfortunately, though, for Microsoft, in the year 2020, they aren’t able to replicate that level of success. With thousands of people looking for Skype alternatives, competitors such as Zoom and Houseparty are making the most of this departure. The recent weeks have seen people use Zoom to hold yoga classes, school lectures and even socialize with friends. Microsoft took over Skype in 2011, thanks to a deal that cost them $8.5 billion.

The same year saw the founding of both Zoom and Snapchat. Back then, Skype had over 100 million active users with 8 million of them choosing to voice calls over the application. Hence, it is safe to say, that back in 2011, Skype was the leading market player, being everyone’s first choice for video calling. It was so popular that the Onion released a statement that the word Skype would soon find a place in the dictionary.

Furthermore, three years later, the prophecy came true, and it was added as a verb to the Oxford English Dictionary. However, at the same time, Microsoft was struggling with turning Skype into a profitable and relevant business.

End of an Era

Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype happened during the same time applications such as WhatsApp, Messenger, and WeChat were gaining momentum with youngsters. In a bid to lessen competition, Microsoft even got rid of its own Live Messenger, which was also quite popular at the time.

One of the biggest problems Microsoft had was that Skype worked on Peer-to-Peer technology, making it difficult to adapt to mobile devices. In 2013, Microsoft shifted Skype from a P2P network onto cloud-powered servers, in a move to make it more efficient on mobile devices. The same year, Skype began the default messenger for Windows 8.1, and also a part of the Xbox One console and Outlook.com.

However, the transition was messy, resulting in repeating notifications on multiple devices. This led to the app becoming less reliable, while all of its competitors kept growing from strength to strength. Rather than fixing the underlying issues which led to this unreliability, Microsoft kept trying to redesign the interface for years.

Change in Direction

Instead of fixing Skype, Microsoft kept adding new supplementary features such as emoji’s and shutting down the Qik app. Then, in 2017, Microsoft redesigned Skype and made it eerily similar to Snapchat. However, this did not sit well with fans, and soon enough, Microsoft had to get rid of these features. Then, the tech giant pushed Skype as a replacement for Lync, an enterprise messaging application. However, with the arrival of Microsoft Teams in 2016, this plan too was dropped mid-way. With the success of Teams, Microsoft has been pushing it aggressively, taking all the spotlight off Skype. While Skype might not disappear soon, it no longer seems to be the company’s main focus. In 2015, Skype boasted of over 300 million active users, and Microsoft hasn’t bothered to update those numbers since.

Coronavirus-related Surge

The coronavirus pandemic has led to a 70% surge in usage, with over 40 million people using Skype daily. This means that before the Coronavirus pandemic, over 23 million people used Skype daily. However, at the same time, rivals such as Zoom, Hangouts and Houseparty also seem to be doing quite well for themselves. Both Zoom and Houseparty have exploded with Zoom topping the American App Store and coming in second in the UK App Store list. Houseparty has topped the UK and comes in at third place in the US. By comparison, Skype comes in at 75 in the US and 15 in the UK.

However, Microsoft Teams is doing much better, being 7th in the US, and 6th in the UK. However, Zoom refuses to share their numbers regarding usage, and hence we do not know the actual number of users. The biggest reason for people turning to Zoom and Houseparty is due to their ease of use. However, both these apps are now facing privacy concerns with Zoombombing and Houseparty hacking has become popular.

While there are several reasons for people migrating to Zoom and Houseparty, Microsoft’s inefficiency when it comes to dealing with Skype’s issues is definitely a major reason. With Skype all set to migrate to an Electron-powered app, making it more like a traditional desktop app, the future looks uncertain for Skype. Reports even state that it might face the same verdict that Live Messenger did a few years ago.

Eric S. Yuan : CEO & Founder of Zoom Video Communications, ‘A Service That Connects People’

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In this fast running world where problems require an instant solution, face to face interactions are hard to get. At this time, people require a connection, which they can use, to interact with each other, without covering the actual distances between them. Also, many video calling apps in the software market doesn’t allow to connect more than 4 or 6 people at the same time. Eric S. Yuan also had faced the same problem, but instead of resenting over it, he stepped up and worked hard to give this industry ‘Zoom’.

Since his college days, Yuan had dreamt about building a communication platform that covered the distances between the people without even travelling. That’s when Zoom’s idea popped up in Yuan’s mind while he was still in his freshman year of college. And, in 2011, he founded Zoom. Zoom is a company that provides remote conferencing services using cloud computing. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, United States and the software it brings, gives you the advantage of the combined video conferencing, online meetings chats and mobile collaborations.

Eric S Yuan
Image Source: bmmagazine.co

While in college, Eric’s girlfriend (now wife) lived at a place quite distant from his place. Whenever he wanted to meet her, he used to take excruciating 10-hour train rides. He wished that he could build a solution to this problem through which his girlfriend and he could stay connected, even without being together, physically. He wanted that he could visit her anytime without any travelling.

Eric always said that it was his dream to come to the United States and achieve something big due to his interest, he had grown in the new technology ‘Internet’ that was blooming at that time. At the time, when he applied for the Visa for the US, he got his application rejected a few times. He continuously applied for nine times over the course of 2 years. And after his ninth try, he was finally granted one.

“When I came to America, I did not even speak English, but I knew that I could write codes. I knew I had to work very hard, and so did I. Also, I’m very paranoid so I say to myself, I have to work harder’. Working hard, that is the only thing I know better than my competitor”, says Eric recalling his old days and his mantra of success.

In 1997, Eric came to the Silicon Valley and joined WebEx. WebEx was real time, and it had only a dozen employees. After Yuan’s joining, the company grew very quickly and went public in no time. In 2007, WebEx was sold to Cisco. He was appointed as the Vice President of Cisco and the in-charge of collaborations software.

At Cisco, he did consumer interactions directly with consumers. He found out that many of the consumers were not happy either with Cisco or WebEx. Eric knew that this was the time to do something big that he always dreamt of, something during his college times. He left Cisco and alongside geared up a team of 40 engineers, and came up with ‘Zoom’ in 2011.

After the release, Zoom frew to about a thousand users, and the numbers kept on growing with every update release. As of now, Zoom can process 1000 participants in a single video conferencing call. After being in the market for 5-6 years, it registered more than 20 Billion annualized meeting minutes.

Eric believes that keeping customers happy is something which runs a company. If the customers are not happy, the company will be long gone. Zoom was ranked 18 in the Forbes Cloud 100. Also, Eric was ranked number 1 in the top CEO by Glassdoor based on approval ratings from the employee reviews. Eric got an astonishing 99% approval showing that how he keeps his employees happy too.

He wishes that he could open his company a lot before, but he is still happy with his success. He thrives to do hard work. When asked upon start-ups, he said, “The journey is long and tough, but one must not be afraid to start. One should be vulnerable to taking risks. Also, find investors who want to invest in you, not only in your business”.

Eric S. Yuan, the CEO and Founder of Zoom Video Communications, has a story that motivates and says out loud that hardships are inevitable and without them, no one can reach the success they desire. Eric is an inspiring leader, leading his team to the best to provide the best.