Be careful while accepting Zoom meeting invites. Hackers might be trying to steal your information

As work meetings and classrooms go virtual during the pandemic, the videotelephony and online chat service Zoom has become an overnight success. The application became a go-to for all sorts of meetings, until a privacy scandal broke out, leaving people extremely insecure.

However, as there are much fewer alternatives, Zoom still manages to chalk up about 300 million daily users. The company, however, is currently pursuing a 90-day plan to fix the security issues.

Hi, attention tracking feature is off by default – once enabled, hosts can tell if participants have the App open and active when the screen-sharing feature is in use. It does not track any aspects of your audio/video or other applications on your window. https://t.co/sWWfrsXe42

— Zoom (@zoom_us) March 22, 2020

“I am proud to reach this step in our 90-day plan, but this is just the beginning,” Eric Yuan, the company’s chief executive officer, said.

 “We will earn our customers’ trust and deliver them happiness with our unwavering focus on providing the most secure platform.”

The platform itself has tried to address the loopholes with new updates and the introduction of end-to-end encryption, but it still does not make it immune to hacking and scams.

According to cybersecurity firm Abnormal Security, hackers are sending out fake Zoom invites to steal personal information. These particular emails feed on job security during the pandemic.

These spoofed emails are titled as ‘Zoom meeting reminder with HR concerning the termination of the recipient’s employment’ and containing a link to join the chatroom. However, when in panic and fear, the recipient clicks on the link, it directs them to the URL “zoom-emergency.myftp.org.”

“When the victim reads the email, they panic, click on the phishing link, and hurriedly attempt to log into this fake meeting. Instead, their credentials will be stolen by the attacker,” the Abnormal Security’s report read.

Users need to be mindful of such scams. The report also revealed that this phishing scam managed to affect at least 50,000 mailboxes so far.

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