Application Security , Governance & Risk Management , Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development

Zoom Reverses Course, Removes Local Web Server

Controversial Design Decision Could Allow for an Ambush Video Call
Zoom Reverses Course, Removes Local Web Server
Zoom has made changes to its Mac application, including adding a manual uninstall feature, after a security researcher's findings.

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Video conferencing vendor Zoom has opted to make major changes to its Mac application after a security researcher found several weaknesses in it.

Jonathan Leitschuh, 25, a software engineer at Gradle in the Boston area, investigated how Zoom’s client software automatically opens on a Mac after someone clicks a meeting link in a browser window.

Jonathan Leitschuh

He found it would be possible with one line of code planted within an iframe on a web page to trigger the launch of Zoom’s client. Visiting that page would thrust a person into a conference call - and, depending on how a person had their Zoom settings configured, with their video camera on.

Zoom, which had 40 million users as of 2015, became a public company on April 18.

Leitschuh reported security issues to Zoom on March 26. He and the company had been communicating regularly since then but disagreed over the severity of some of his findings. The two sides appear to have reached a truce, with Zoom committing to Leitschuh’s security recommendations.

“There was certainly some friction in terms of his characterization of the vulnerability,” Zoom’s CISO, Richard Farley, tells Information Security Media Group.

Public Disclosure Creates Pressure

Leitschuh opted out of participating in Zoom’s private bug bounty program. The terms of the agreement would have required him not to disclose the bugs even after Zoom fixed them.

Instead, the researcher went public with his findings in a blog on Monday, which put public pressure on Zoom to make changes. Leitschuh says he told Zoom he planned on going public after a 90-day disclosure period, warning that consequences of taking his findings public could be painful for the company.

Leitschuh’s code that could cause the sudden launch of a video call if someone clicked on a link or visited a web page. (Source: Jonathan Leitschuh)

Public disclosure of vulnerabilities, however, can drive change that might not otherwise have happened, Leitschuh tells ISMG. “Some security teams just don’t have the power to effect change inside,” he says.

One of Leitschuh’s most alarming findings is that Zoom installs a local web server as part of its application. Even if Zoom is uninstalled, that local web server stays behind listening on port 19421. If someone then clicks on a Zoom meeting link, the local web server reinstalls Zoom, the researcher says.

That revelation drew surprise and criticism, including from Jake Williams, a former operator with the National Security Agency's Tailored Access Operations unit and founder of Rendition Infosec, a security consultancy in Atlanta. He tweeted:

Controversial Design: A Local Server

The reason Zoom installed a local web server was to get around a protection built into Safari 12 called cross-origin resource sharing policy, or CORS. That prevents a web page from launching a local application without an explicit permission window.

Zoom did this to streamline the video conferencing flow so users would not have to click another window to launch Zoom. But the workaround is considered questionable even though software vendors other than Zoom have implemented it.

It also meant that users who’d thought they’d uninstalled Zoom could still be forced into a video call if Leitschuh’s code was planted on a web page. The Zoom application would launch, so presumably the user would know they are in a conference, but the behaviour would be unexpected.

Richard Farley

After Leitschuh published his blog post, Zoom doubled down on the local web server design decision. But it fell under heavy criticism, and Zoom reversed the decision on Tuesday. It issued an update for Zoom for Mac on Tuesday - version 4.4.53932.0709 - that removes the local web server.

Farley says “the consensus seems to be we’d rather have our users have to make an extra click to join a meeting than have this extra piece of code listening in on a port on a Mac.”

Leitschuh also reported a denial-of-service vulnerability, which Zoom patched in May.

Zoom: We’re Gonna Change

In addition to removing the local web server, Zoom says it now plans other changes.

This weekend, it will release another patch that will change the default preference on whether a person’s video camera is on. Zoom tends to default to having video on even if a person flicked it off at a previous time.

The patch will keep a video camera off for future meetings if someone has selected that preference once, Zoom says. Leitschuh pointed out in his blog that it's possible to ambush call someone and force the recipient’s camera to be turned on via settings in Zoom’s call interface.

Zoom says that behavior was only possible if the call recipient had not turned video off. But as pointed out before, Zoom defaulted to having video on.

Zoom also plans to add a feature to allow users to manually uninstall the application. “Once the patch is deployed, a new menu option will appear that says ‘Uninstall Zoom.’ By clicking that button, Zoom will be completely removed from the user’s device along with the user’s saved settings,” it writes.


About the Author

Jeremy Kirk

Jeremy Kirk

Executive Editor, Security and Technology, ISMG

Kirk was executive editor for security and technology for Information Security Media Group. Reporting from Sydney, Australia, he created "The Ransomware Files" podcast, which tells the harrowing stories of IT pros who have fought back against ransomware.




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