Zoom Disables File Sharing After Finding Potential Security Vulnerability

Zoom disabled the file-sharing feature in its popular application after it found an undisclosed vulnerability that was endangering the security and privacy of the users.

As the COVID-19 pandemic started to spread throughout the world, people and companies turned to existing teleconference software to keep employees connected. And Zoom seemed to get the whole spotlight, mostly because it was easy to use and offered free, albeit limited, access to anyone who needed it.

Although the attention was a bonanza for the company, it brought intensified scrutiny and investigations. Before long, all kinds of issues started to pop up, on practically on all the available platforms. It started with data leaked to Facebook and ended with attackers being able to control the camera and microphone on macOS.

One measure announced by the Zoom developers was to stop adding new features to the platform, focusing entirely on security reports, either from the community or their internal team. One of the first “victims” of this audit was the file-sharing option, which was disabled by the team after they found a vulnerability.

“All of our resources are focused on looking in every corner, looking at every line of code, looking at every feature to make sure there aren”t any security or privacy issues, and we found a potential security vulnerability with file sharing, so we disabled that feature,” said Zoom founder and CEO Eric S. Yuan.

“If there is any conflict between our features and our user”s privacy and security, privacy and security come first.”

The details of the vulnerability were not made public, but that might change after the company patches it. In the past couple of days, the Zoom team also added a new Security button that lets users quickly access all relevant options from a single place.