Zoom Structural Vulnerability Discovered

Wed Jul 10 07:45:16 EEST 2019

This is assuredly right.  The change from Adobe to Zoom may, or may not, have been right for ICANN and for this group for any number of reasons ranging from cost, to security, to scalability and utility.  But let’s not romanticize Adobe.  They are not a terribly secure platform generically.  As James said, the Zoom response is poor – but we can’t hang that around the neck of ICANN org.  

P

Paul Rosenzweig

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From: NCSG-Discuss <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> On Behalf Of James Gannon
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2019 12:52 AM
To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Zoom Structural Vulnerability Discovered

Just want to call out that Adobe has likely the worst reputation in the entire tech industry when it comes to security, I really would not hold them out as either prompt or without serious issues (I believe they still hold the record for number of CVSS 9+ vulns).

Zooms response is poor I agree, but on a data driven comparison it is a far more secure platform.

From: NCSG-Discuss <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU <mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> > on behalf of Ayden Férdeline <icann at FERDELINE.COM <mailto:icann at FERDELINE.COM> >
Reply-To: Ayden Férdeline <icann at FERDELINE.COM <mailto:icann at FERDELINE.COM> >
Date: Tuesday, 9 July 2019 at 14:13
To: "NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU <mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> " <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU <mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> >
Subject: Re: Zoom Structural Vulnerability Discovered

That is true, but note that this security researcher notified Zoom of the exploit and they were in no rush to repair it. Look at the timeline in the Medium post. They only sought to fix it after the vulnerability drew media attention. 

Adobe Connect was not perfect but it met our needs and the occasional security issues that arose were promptly fixed by Adobe and never as serious as this one!

Best wishes, Ayden

On Tue, Jul 9, 2019 at 18:07, Adeel Sadiq <11beeasadiq at seecs.edu.pk <mailto:11beeasadiq at seecs.edu.pk> > wrote: 

Speaking from a technical perspective, no software is perfect or bug-free. Its only a matter of time a loophole is found and exploited and eventually patched up. If you think Adobe Connect or ezTalks were/are free of these architectural issues, think again! That's the way we technical community do things. 

Regards

Adeel

Pakistan

On Wed, Jul 10, 2019 at 1:37 AM Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com <mailto:icann at ferdeline.com> > wrote:

Unfortunately, uninstalling the application does not rectify the situation, due to poor architecture (acknowledged by Zoom on their blog today). They are working on a fix, now that public scrutiny demands one. So disappointing that ICANN has put us in this terrible situation. 

Ayden

On Tue, Jul 9, 2019 at 16:15, Vaibhav Aggarwal, Catalyst & Group CEO <va at BLADEBRAINS.COM <mailto:va at BLADEBRAINS.COM> > wrote: 

Thanks for this. Till the next Update, I have removed the Zoom For Mac Client with immediate effect.  

Regards,

Vaibhav Aggarwal

New Delhi

VaibhavAggarwal.com <http://VaibhavAggarwal.com>  

On Jul 10, 2019, at 12:30 AM, Michael Karanicolas <mkaranicolas at GMAIL.COM <mailto:mkaranicolas at GMAIL.COM> > wrote:

Hey - remember when ICANN switched everyone from Adobe over to Zoom as a way of enhancing information security and data privacy? 

"A vulnerability in the Mac Zoom Client allows any malicious website to enable your camera without your permission... This vulnerability allows any website to forcibly join a user to a Zoom call, with their video camera activated, without the user's permission. On top of this, this vulnerability would have allowed any webpage to DOS (Denial of Service) a Mac by repeatedly joining a user to an invalid call. Additionally, if you’ve ever installed the Zoom client and then uninstalled it, you still have a localhost web server on your machine that will happily re-install the Zoom client for you, without requiring any user interaction on your behalf besides visiting a webpage. This re-install ‘feature’ continues to work to this day."

Read more here: https://medium.com/@jonathan.leitschuh/zoom-zero-day-4-million-webcams-maybe-an-rce-just-get-them-to-visit-your-website-ac75c83f4ef5

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