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The Zoom service from Sunet differs from the public version

Many higher education institutions (HEIs) are using Sunet’s e-meeting service Zoom right now, to conduct remote teaching. The US company Zoom has been criticised for a lack of security, but for users of Sunet’s Zoom service the risks are considerably reduced.

Sunet has its own installation of Zoom, which is operated by Nordunet, the joint organisation that links together Nordic research and education networks. Because of this, Swedish HEIs are not affected by several of the integrity issues raised in the media. For example, data from HEIs’ Zoom meetings are not sent on to Zoom’s servers in the USA, but instead stored on servers in the Nordic countries.

Valter Nordh, CTO at Sunet

Valter Nordh, CTO at Sunet

– It is important not to confuse the public Zoom service with the version of Zoom that our universities use. When we procured a new e-meeting tool a few years ago, one of the basic requirements was that the service had to be operated from within the Nordic countries. This was done to avoid some of the integrity and security issues we are now seeing for public users of Zoom, says Valter Nordh, one of Sunets CTOs .

Sunet’s own Zoom installation is also based on teachers and students only being able to access the service after logging in via their HEI. This means that the Zoom company does not have access to users’ passwords.

“The cases of hacked Zoom passwords that are discussed in the media do therefore not affect our users at the universities,” says Valter Nordh.

Read more in FAQ about how security issues are handled in Sunet’s Zoom service

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