Standard Chartered bank tells employees to stay off Zoom

Video and online chat platform, Zoom, has surged in popularity during this time of lockdown and self isolation.

But it recently came under scrutiny for privacy lapses.

And last week, Standard Charted became the first big bank known to tell employees to stay off Zoom.

According to a memo seen by Reuters, the ban is over cybersecuriy concerns.

The London-based bank is the latest to distance itself from Zoom after interlopers exposed security flaws.

Some burst bursting into strangers' video chats in the nude, inserted lewd images into presentations or fired off racial slurs.

The bank's memo also warned against using Google Hangouts for virtual gatherings.

Experts say Zoom and Hangouts don't offer the level of encryption of conversations compared to rivals like Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams or BlueJeans Meetings.

A Standard Chartered spokeswoman declined to comment over the memo.

But she said cybersecurity remains a top priority for staff.

Zoom in March had about 200 million people using its system every day, up from 10 million last year.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.