While the rise of Zoom as a platform has been spectacular, some notable celebrity Zoom meeting bombing meant it suffered a serious brand and trust blow when some of the then less than rock-solid security features of the platform were exposed. Admirably, the company instantly recognised with the enormous surge in users, security features that were in development needed to be accelerated, and after a 90 day epic security feature building response, the majority of the issues of concern have been remedied. Passwords and a waiting room feature means that the Zoom bomb will be a relic of the past, and the introduction of end-to-end encryption has significantly bolstered privacy for all users.

If your conversations are of the nature that would require security clearances, Zoom is not the platform for you, but neither is Skype or Teams as none of the available video platforms have the level of security required. If this is how your business rolls, then consider a purpose-built super secure tool such as Signal or Face-Time, or consider using a different mode of communication. For the majority of business users, Zoom is a secure platform that will meet your needs, to ensure that you have maximised your security and privacy here are some tips

• Join Zoom meetings through your web browser rather than using the Zoom desktop software. The web browser version gets security enhancements faster. The web version sits in your browser and doesn’t have the permissions an installed app has, limiting the amount of harm it can potentially cause. When you click a link to join a meeting, your browser will open a new tab and prompt you to use or install the Zoom desktop software. But in the fine print, there's a link to "join from your browser." Click that instead.
• If you are hosting a Zoom meeting, ask that meeting participants sign in with a password rather than use a waiting room. That will make Zoom-bombing much less likely.
• Set up two-factor authentication (2FA) for your Zoom account. That minimises the opportunity for you to be hacked. Here is the how-to guide for 2FA.
• Lock your meeting once it's started. When you're in your meeting, click Manage Participants in the Zoom toolbar. You should see your meeting participants listed on the right-hand side of the screen. In the bottom right-hand corner, click the More button and select Lock Meeting. This prevents any new participants from joining the meeting, even if they have the meeting password. Also a good tool to promote punctuality.

With great public and business adoption, comes great interest for hackers in breaking the system and looking for ways to attack. This, unfortunately, comes with the territory of popular platforms, and like other tools you will use in your business, use all the security options you can, including promptly installing updates to make sure you minimise your risk. The public scrutiny around Zoom’s security issues means the company is proactively taking its role in protecting users data, privacy and experiences seriously, and is regularly fixing and updating issues.

If you want a deeper dive into the features and uses of Zoom for your business, check out our All About Using Zoom Factsheet.