A Blind report, most recently updated Friday morning, found that 35% of professionals are worried their information may have been compromised on Zoom. Because of this fear, 12% of users said they stopped using the video conferencing platform altogether. 

Zoom has been slammed for a wide array of security issues over the past couple of weeks, including Zoom bombings, personal data leaks, absence of end-to-end encryption, and more. 

SEE: How to use Zoom: 15 tips and tricks (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

The Zoom bombings, in particular, are something that companies are particularly worried about, said Kyum Kim, head of US operations at Blind. 

“There were a lot of Zoom meetings and passwords on the web that were compromised, which means anyone can come into your Zoom meeting and just into what you’re talking about.” Kim said. “And a lot of times these meetings are really private, internal meetings for companies. That’s what people are most concerned about right now.”

As the coronavirus spiked across the globe, so did the use of Zoom. With people forced to social distance and self-quarantine, Zoom became the new norm. March saw a 225% increase in Zoom connections compared to the previous month and data usage rose by a whopping 877% on the platform, Wandera found. 

However, Zoom’s popularity was also its downfall, as the platform garnered the attention of cybercriminals and malicious users. Because of the concerns, government agencies and educational institutions including the US Senate, Taiwan, the Australian Defense Force,  NASA, and New York City’s Department of Education have banned Zoom. 

Major companies in the enterprise are following similar practices: Google, SpaceX and Smart Communications have also banned the use of Zoom. 

Blind’s data dives deeper into how these security issues have affected major companies. 

Impacts of Zoom security issues on the enterprise

The data surveyed more than 4,000 respondents to determine if Zoom’s security issues had impacted their usage of the platform, and if they were worried about compromised information. 

Google only announced its banning of Zoom on Thursday, so the Blind data from Google employees may not hold true in the coming weeks. 

The following 10 companies had the most respondents reportedly stop using Zoom because of security concerns: 

1. Salesforce (37%)
2. Cisco (30%)
3. Adobe (22%)
4. Apple (21%)
5. Microsoft (20%)
6. Google (18%)
7. Intel (17%)
8. Expedia (15%)
9. LinkedIn (12%)
10. Amazon (10%)

The following 10 companies had the most respondents say they were worried their information may have been compromised during the Zoom breaches: 

1. Cisco (71%)
2. Apple (55%)
3. Microsoft (51%)
4. Google (47%)
5. LinkedIn (42%)
6. Intel (36%)
7. Amazon (34%)
8. Expedia (33%)
9. eBay (33%)
10. Adobe (32%)

“What we found to be really interesting was a lot of companies who said ‘yes’ to this about information being compromised are actually Zoom’s competitors,” Kim said. 

“Google has Hangouts, Cisco has Webex, and Microsoft has Teams. Employees who work for Zoom’s competitors may be more worried about the security concerns maybe because they know how video conferencing works,” Kim added.

While Zoom’s security problems are definitely hurting the company, it doesn’t necessarily mean the platform is doomed, according to Kim. 

“This is going to just trigger healthy competition,” Kim said. “The [Zoom] CEO officially mentioned that they’re going to work on the security issues and freeze all other initiatives which shows their willingness to fix the problem.” 

“I don’t think this video conferencing trend with COVID-19 is going to end soon,” Kim added.  “It’s probably going to continue for at least a couple of months, which means the video conferencing market is going to continue growing.” 

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