Zoom temporarily pauses new features for three months while it attempts to solve security issues

Zoom is attempting to address a rash of security issues that compromise users’ passwords, webcams, and microphones as its user numbers balloon across the world.

According to the video conferencing platform, the company will freeze new feature updates for the next 90 days as it attempts to focus its energy on rectifying issues with user security.

‘Over the next 90 days, we are committed to dedicating the resources needed to better identify, address, and fix issues proactively,’ wrote Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan in a blog post.

‘We are also committed to being transparent throughout this process. We want to do what it takes to maintain your trust.’

Video calling app Zoom says it will pause adding new features while it examines the service’s security more closely

The company says that its engineering resources will now be entirely devoted to improving the service’s security.

To help increase transparency, Zoom said it will also deliver periodic reports on law enforcement requests for data, records, or content and will ‘enhance’ its current bug bounty program which pays ethical hackers for finding and reporting flaws found in its code.

In addition to announcing the freeze, Zoom also detailed the meteoric rise in its number of users throughout the last several months – an influx spurred by isolation measures designed to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. 

According to Zoom, its user numbers have catapulted from 10 million in December to a whopping 200 million.

Zoom’s rise to prominence has been overshadowed by a slew of security issues, however, including revelations about data sharing practices with Facebook. 

Data shared to Facebook included the time the Zoom app is opened, your phone carrier, device specs, your location and other analytic data that can be used to target adverts. Pictured, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, seen here at the firm’s IPO in New York last April

Last month, Zoom was discovered sharing sensitive data with the social media giant, including the time the Zoom app was opened, phone carrier, device specs, location and other analytic data that can be used to target ads. 

According to a recent blog post from the company’s Yuan, Zoom was ‘made aware on Wednesday, March 25, 2020, that the Facebook SDK was collecting device information unnecessary for us to provide our services’ and has subsequently changed the app’s code.

Other flaws discovered in Zoom also compromise the privacy of one’s webcam, allowing hackers to tap into video and audio feeds and another issue that allows hackers to steal passwords on Windows devices.