Zoom not a Chinese App, clarifies company

Zoom on Monday said that it's a US-based firm and doesn't share links with China. The clarification from the video conferencing platform comes after some reports included its name with Chinese apps that were red-flagged by the Indian security agencies over security issues. "There have been several media reports implying that the Zoom Video Communications Platform (Zoom) is a Chinese app. This is incorrect. Zoom is a U.S. corporation, founded and headquartered in San Jose, California, and publicly traded on the NASDAQ. While we have subsidiaries in China and in many other parts of the world, like so many of our global peers, our operations and business are controlled by a leadership team in the US," a Zoom spokesperson said in a statement.

"The reports representing that an advisory released by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) claiming that the Zoom Platform is unsafe was based on earlier advisories by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In). However, this is incorrect. CERT-In has released several notes and advisories with regard to the Zoom Platform since 2019; a practice followed for all major technology companies. The advisories and notes are primarily designed for public safety and awareness," Zoom also said.

In April, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had red-flagged the video conferencing facility as unsafe, days after India's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) had raised concerns over potential cyber attacks through Zoom. "Insecure usage of the platform may allow cyber criminals to access sensitive information such as meeting details and conversations," the government had then said.

Zoom thereafter had said that it's in talks with the Indian government on the concerns related to security. The video conferencing software of the San Jose, California-based company, which picked up demand globally amid coronavirus lockdown, had also said that

it's working on adding actual end-to-end encryption to further secure video calls, Zoom Video Communications, India Head, Sameer Raje, had said.

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