Zoom Opens Singapore Data Centre

Zoom Video Communications has opened its first server facility in south east Asia, with its data centre located in the city state of Singapore.

Singapore is a highly popular destination for data centers, and the news that Zoom has opened a facility there was revealed in a Bloomberg interview with Zoom executive Abe Smith.

Zoom has become one of the most widely used apps during the Coronavirus pandemic, but its use during nationwide lockdowns has triggered privacy and national security concerns over its China links.

Encryption worries

The Singapore data centre means that Zoom now has 18 locations globally, including two in China itself.

The new Singapore facility will also result in the creation of jobs in the city state, namely engineers and sales staff.

Zoom faced a security scare in April when Canadian researchers at Citizen Lab recommended organisations against using Zoom for certain types of meetings, after discovering “significant weaknesses” in the custom encryption scheme the app uses.

The researchers also found that in test calls the AES-128 key was sent to participants from a Zoom server apparently located in Beijing, China.

This prompted the US Senate for example to advise its members not to use Zoom.

Other firms such as SpaceX and others have also banned its use.

Zoombombing

There has also been criticism of “zoombombing”, where uninvited guests crashed meetings.

In May for example Singapore’s education ministry suspended teachers’ use of Zoom following “very serious incidents” of disruption.

One involved obscene images appearing on screens and Caucasian men making lewd comments during a geography lesson with teenaged girls.