Technology Update regarding SFG’s use of Zoom for Virtual Meetings
Joshua G. Lawrence
Information Systems Manager
April 3, 2020
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With the recent and unexpected rise in persons working remotely, reliance on online collaboration tools has soared. If you have been watching the news lately, you have likely seen one company in particular getting a lot of attention.
2019 was a big year for Zoom Video. Its year-over-year revenue growth increased 78%, Full-year sales growth was up 88%, and its customer base increased 61% over the prior year. The increased need for collaboration tools in 2020 has only served to further boost its popularity, as it has quickly become the go-to-option for virtual meetings due to its ease of use and slick performance.
Unfortunately, this has had a couple of negative outcomes:
- As it grew in size and popularity, it presented a more rewarding target for bad actors.
- As it experienced a rapid influx of new and inexperienced users, it was subjected to a lot of negative attention due to issues resulting from operator error.
Most of the media coverage appears to have stemmed from the latter, as many new users did not secure their sessions with a password, and thus left the sessions open for anyone to join. The results are what we are now seeing reported in the media.
Every tech company experiences vulnerabilities at times; and Zoom is no exception. There have been a few issues discovered in the past for which it alone bears the blame. Most of the issues have not been very wide in scope, and, to Zoom’s credit, it has been responsive in addressing them.
Our procedure for Zoom based virtual meetings has been, and continues to be, that all sessions must be password protected. At this time, we feel comfortable continuing to use Zoom based on such established procedure.
Privacy and data security are of paramount importance to SFG. We dedicate substantial resources to designing, implementing and maintaining procedures and systems to minimize any privacy concerns or security breaches.
We will continue to monitor developments relating to Zoom to determine whether any changes to our Zoom communications procedure or communications provider are warranted in the future.
