Over the last few weeks, since the Covid-19 lockdown, Zoom has gone from useful video calling app to an absolute household name. User numbers have grown exponentially, as the world is finding new and creative ways to enjoy human contact in digital form.
The use of Zoom has soared after political parties, corporate offices, schools, organizations and millions across the world started working from home.
Zoom, which competes with Microsoft's
However, the huge influx of users on its platform has raised concerns ranging from its lack of end-to-end encryption of meeting sessions, and "zoombombing," when uninvited guests crash meetings.
Many companies have told their staff members to not use Zoom's video conferencing app due to data security concerns.
In the USA Senators have been asked to find an alternative platform to use for remote working, and the Financial Times reported that the Senate had stopped short of officially banning Zoom Video Communications Inc's service.
Taiwan and Germany had already put restrictions on Zoom's use, while Elon Musk's SpaceX has banned the app over security concerns. The company also faces a class-action lawsuit.
To address those concerns,Zoom has hired former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos as an adviser and formed an advisory board to look into its privacy and safety practices.
So how would a VPN help?
The most important function of a VPN (or Virtual Private Network) is to keep you and your data safe while you're online.
VPN providers reroute all of your internet traffic through their own secure servers.
As well as keeping you anonymous and giving you the ability to change your South African IP address to a location anywhere in the world, VPN services also end-to-end encrypt all of the data sent. The encryption part is critical, as it means that if a cybercriminal or hacker did manage to access any information exchanged - say while using public Wi-Fi, downloading Netflix or on a Zoom call - it would be completely unintelligible.
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Over the last few weeks, since the Covid-19 lockdown, Zoom has gone from useful video calling app to an absolute household name. User numbers have grown exponentially, as the world is finding new and creative ways to enjoy human contact in digital form.
The use VPNs can be applied to your home computer, laptop, mobile - even your router - it means that a single VPN subscription can cover a whole household of online devices.