Reducing impact of Zoom 0day Vulnerabilities

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Zoom 's software is well known for its poor security and privacy records. There has been recent outcry in the media about hackers selling Zoom 0 day Vulnerabilities in dark web. I tried some possible measures which we as an end user could do in order to limit impact of Zoom 0days.

METHOD 1: Using Zoom in Web browser

Most Web browsers restrict the amount of access a web page has on the device by restricting it in browser's sandbox. This effectively reduces the amount of damage an attacker can do to your device.
Since a web page has less access to device compared to an App or Application it can lower risks of data compromise. However joining zoom meeting in browser has to enabled by the host in order to make this possible.

METHOD 2: Using Zoom in a Sandbox

According to Wikipedia , a sandbox is a security mechanism for separating running programs, usually in an effort to mitigate system failures or software vulnerabilities from spreading. It is often used to execute untested or untrusted programs or code, possibly from unverified or untrusted third parties, suppliers, users or websites, without risking harm to the host machine or operating system. 

Most Sandboxing Solutions available for Windows and Linux based operating systems are closed source . The only popular open source sandbox program for windows is sandboxie ,  open sourced from version 5.40 . However since no official installers are present it is quite cumbersome for non technical people to use it.



                                             Tor Browser running in sandboxie.

METHOD 3: Using Zoom in a Virtual Machine


Running Zoom in a dedicated virtual machine is the best way to isolate zoom from host and prevent software vulnerabilities in zoom from impacting the host device. There are many free linux based operating systems which can be used as a guest os inside a virtual machine.  Popular VM Solutions include open source Virtual Box and closed source VMware.

Besides these measures all appropriate  Security Measures must be enabled for safe usage of zoom by tweaking default zoom settings. Zoom should be avoided for use in a high security environment.

I hope zoom would make its default setting secure and deploy end-to-end encryption in future. Till then its wise to avoid zoom.

Comments

  1. TechJiwanApril 29, 2020 at 10:14 PM

    Nice work done buddy..
    I think the best and effective way to be safe is by using tor browser. Which will keep ur data and ur privacy out of those shitty things.
    So it's a good idea..

    ReplyDelete

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