Over 5,00,000 Zoom accounts on sale for under Re 1 each: Report
The accounts are being sold on the dark webZoom responded by saying that they have already hired intelligence firms to detect password dumps
PremiumZoom video conferencing application has raised to prominence thanks to the lockdowns across the globe. The downloads spiked to accommodate the sudden surge in demand for work from home. However, the app also witnessed a lot of breaches in security.
A new report from the Bleeping Computer, has claimed that data of around 5,00,000 Zoom users in on sale on the dark web. The accounts that are on sale are being sold at prices even lower than Re 1. The report claims that the listing was spotted by a cybersecurity intelligence firm Cyble around April 1. The intelligence firm went ahead with the purchase around 5,30,000 accounts at a price of just $0.0020 per account which roughly translates to 15 paisa for each account. This was done to alert the users about the breach in security.
Another disturbing revelation was that these accounts were hacked via credential stuffing attacks. The hackers use the leaked data to access various accounts. The accounts that are successfully logged into are then compiled and sold to other buyers.
According to the report, the accounts that were found vulnerable included some prominent names including that of banks and educational organisations. 290 accounts were linked to popular institutes like University of Vermont, Dartmouth, Lafayette, University of Florida, University of Colorado. Few of these leaked accounts also belonged to big companies like Citibank and Chase.
Zoom responded to the report by saying that they have already hired intelligence firms to detect password dumps that are listed by hackers. The company claims they do this to reset the passwords of the users affected by the hack.
The company stated, "It is common for web services that serve consumers to be targeted by this type of activity, which typically involves bad actors testing large numbers of already compromised credentials from other platforms to see if users have reused them elsewhere. This kind of attack generally does not affect our large enterprise customers that use their own single sign-on systems. We have already hired multiple intelligence firms to find these password dumps and the tools used to create them, as well as a firm that has shut down thousands of websites attempting to trick users into downloading malware or giving up their credentials. We continue to investigate, are locking accounts we have found to be compromised, asking users to change their passwords to something more secure, and are looking at implementing additional technology solutions to bolster our efforts."
Zoom has been grappling with a lot of security issues on their app. Some major tech companies like Google and SpaceX have even banned the use of the application for their employees. Recently, a report claimed that Standard Chartered employees have also been asked to stay away from the application.
To counter the instances of hacking within the application, Zoom introduced a few security features. The app has now introduced a ‘Waiting Room’ for new participants joining a chat. The company has also introduced a dual password setting. The two password settings has been enabled by default to prevent unwanted participants from joining a meeting. The new features will be enabled for all Basic users and Pro users with a single license
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