Zoom forms security council

Uptake of the video platform has soared in the last few weeks due to widespread home working, but security researchers have flagged various privacy issues, and the FBI said it had received reports of so-called ‘zoom-bombing', where interlopers hijack video meetings.

Zoom’s chief information security officer (CISO) council includes CISOs from HSBC and NTT Data. The purpose of the council is to have an "ongoing dialogue" on privacy, security and technology issues and practices, the company’s chief executive Eric Yuan said in a blog post.

The move is part of a plan set out by the company at the beginning of April, which included freezing new features and conducting a review with third-parties and users to understand security issues.

Yuan wrote: "Zoom has seen tremendous growth and new use cases emerge over the past few weeks, and we are committed to ensuring that the safety, privacy, and security of our platform is worthy of the trust of all of our users — both new and existing ... Collaboration across the industry is one of the most effective ways to ensure we are implementing security and privacy best practices."

Within the council, an advisory board including a subset of CISOs will act as personal advisors to Yuan. Security professionals from Netflix and Uber are among the advisory board members.

The company has also appointed Alex Stamos, adjunct professor at Stanford University’s Freeman Institute and former chief security officer at Facebook, as an outside advisor.