Facebook’s former security chief to help Zoom secure platform

Alex Stamos, who served as Facebook’s chief security officer between June, 2015 and August, 2018, announced he will help online video conferencing platform Zoom build their security program. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan had reached out to Stamos after the security expert posted a series of tweets about Zoom’s security threats. The online video conferencing tool has been the target of what is now being called “ZoomBoming” — online meetings being hacked by bad actors spamming the platform with inappropriate images and racial slurs.

“To successfully scale a video-heavy platform to such a size, with no appreciable downtime and in the space of weeks, is literally unprecedented in the history of the Internet,” writes Stamos in a Medium post, “Zoom has some important work to do in core application security, cryptographic design and infrastructure security, and I’m looking forward to working with Zoom’s engineering teams on those projects.”

Why we care

Video conferencing platforms have become a crucial martech tool during the COVID-19 crisis, and not just for our community, but across industries. As companies connect virtually with clients and partners — and business leaders with staff — having a secured video conference tool is of utmost importance.

Zoom’s explosive growth in the last month made it a prime target for hackers. The company’s recent privacy and security issues also put a spotlight on the challenges that come with a sharp rise in usage for martech platforms. Such exponential growth often results in companies having to scale their technology to meet high-volume demands, often without the time or resources to do so effectively.

More on the news

• Stamos made it clear in the Medium post that hes is not an employee or executive of Zoom and does not speak for the company.
• In response to its security issues, Zoom has created a 90-day plan to address privacy protections on the platform and created a CISO Council and Advisory Board.
• Zoom usage has skyrocketed this year, going from 10 million users in December, 2019 to more than 200 million last month.