Zoom and Google Hangouts banned by large companies and government organizations

• Google, SpaceX, Standard Chartered have banned employees from using Zoom.
• Zoom has become one of the most popular video conferencing apps amid the Coronavirus pandemic.
• Standard Chartered has banned both Zoom and Google Hangouts for its employees.

The Coronavirus pandemic has pushed people to work from home and conduct meetings via video conferencing. It hence comes as no surprise that apps like Zoom witnessed a massive surge in usage. Along with popularity, Zoom has been the target of controversies over security issues.

As per a report, over half a million Zoom accounts are available on the dark web for less than a cent each. Apart from this, Zoom Bombing, which is basically crashing a digital meeting has also become quite common.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan recently admitted that some calls were erroneously routed via China.

Several companies and organisations have now started asking their employees to stop using video conferencing services such as Zoom and Google Hangouts to communicate.

Companies that have banned Zoom

• Google has banned Zoom for all its employees, and they have been asked to use the company's Duo service.
• Standard Chartered has become the first major bank that has asked its employees to stop using Zoom.
• Elon Musk-led SpaceX has banned its employees from using Zoom.

Government organisations that have banned Zoom

• Taiwan banned the use of Zoom for all the government agencies.
• The German Foreign Ministry has restricted the usage of Zoom to only emergency situations in personal computers.
• The Australian Defence Force has banned the use of Zoom after a comedian Zoom bombed its meeting.
• NASA has banned all its employees from using Zoom.
• The United States Senate advised its members to use platforms other than Zoom.
• Singapore banned schools from using Zoom after obscene images appeared on screen during a geography lesson.
• New York City banned schools from using Zoom citing security concerns.

In addition to Zoom, Standard Chartered also banned Google Hangouts for its employees.

See also:

Researchers found and bought more than 500,000 Zoom passwords on the dark web for less than a cent each

Zoom-bombing has become a popular form of trolling during quarantine. In many cases, it may be illegal, according to experts.

Zoom is giving paid users more control over where their calls are routed, after it got slammed for 'mistakenly' using data centers in China