Zoom had and continues to have a significant developer presence in China. Those individuals are subject to CCP coercion. There was also a time when they routed American calls through the mainland [1]. That has been fixed. But it remains excessive to cast all past criticism of Zoom as Microsoft's work.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/03/zoom-calls-routed-china/
For all my harsh criticism of both Microsoft and Google I wish them well: I want them to tidy up and become trustworthy.
Because the alternative where China becomes world leading is actually worse.
For all their warts Americans and American companies have done much good and gotten way more criticism for their faults compared to others.
That doesn't however mean that they should get off the hook easily, only that we should work to put them in an position were we can actually trust each other.
I figured that it was done by a big party that had a trusted relationship with tech journalists because they bigged up vulnerabilities that were relatively minor to journalists who didnt seem to be aware of it.
It's possible it wasnt Microsoft but the pattern of stories indicated Zoom was a public relations target of someone who freaked out after seeing how fast they were growing and MS certainly took full advantage.
I remember we knew about Zoom vulnerabilities in 2018 as well but I rarely used video conferencing and definitely not for "daily stand ups" however, I wouldn't discount Microsoft tried its best to "educate" reporters.
Zoom went from interesting tool to de facto worldwide standard in about two months. I'm pretty sure that in the offices of Microsoft, webex, goto meeting etc there was a collective WTF from leadership and people were instructed to find weaknesses. It doesn't follow that there was collusion or an evil conspiracy.
Security flaws in a product are part of the life cycle, unavoidable and might be accepted as long as proper and timely response is taken. That's due diligence. But lying about security? That's not even negligence.
So whats worse: a backdoor for China, or a giant hole for anyone interested?
I guess the latter gives us esual opportunity...
At work we were briefed in detail by spy from CSIS to avoid Zoom. I trust the Canadian spy before a trust I company with CCP ties.
The only thing I can add from that briefing is avoid Zoom, Huawei and product from Facebook, use Telegram if you can and Teams or Google current messaging solution if you can't.
also from CSIS briefing?
And vulnerabilities occur in all mainstream software.
what about zoom-calls in other countries?