In the space of just a couple of months, Zoom has become ubiquitous.

Seemingly everyone knows about the video-conferencing app now: parents, co-workers, friends, grandparents and neighbours.

The software company that went public last year is having a moment during the pandemic. Like Google, Uber and Twitter, its name is used as a verb almost as often as a noun.

People have flocked to the service to hold business meetings, keep up with friends, build digital clubs and even host wedding celebrations.

By February, Zoom had gained 2.22 million users already in 2020 — more users than it amassed in the entirety of 2019. In March, it was being downloaded on average 343,000 times with only 18 per cent of those downloads originating in the company's native United States proving that it had 'gone global'.

Most staggeringly of all, daily average users rose from 10 million in December 2019 to 200 million in March 2020. Zoom is one of the very few companies in the world to see a notable rise in its stock price despite the general downturn.

However, as the famous saying goes: "With great power comes great responsibility" ... and also greater scrutiny.

Researchers and journalists have audited the app and found multiple security and privacy risks. People are realising the free app might actually come with the cost of giving up their personal data.

The app’s main selling point, at least to the broader consumer world, is that it offers free, 40-minute conference calls with up to 100 attendees. It’s easy to use — people don’t need a login to access a meeting — and the interface is relatively intuitive. However, those same features put people at risk.

Zoombombing, a word that's sprung up from nowhere to be a shoo-in for dictionary inclusion next year, is one example of taking advantage of Zoom’s system of randomly generated ID access codes and lack of required passwords to join a call.

People drop into Zoom calls that aren’t their own and broadcast any material they like. This can range from the more harmless, such as revealing the answers in a family trivia quiz, to the much more serious like pornography and sexually explicit acts.

Considering many schools around the globe are using the app to host remote lessons between teachers and students, it's easy to see why this could become a major problem.

Indeed, amid concerns about Zoombombing, various organisations have banned the use of the app. Google has banned the use of Zoom on all workers' laptops, a have NASA, the German Foreign Ministry, the United States Senate and the Australian Defence Force.

After one incident where a man performed a lewd act after infiltrating a virtual classroom, the New York City Department of Education prohibited all of its teachers from using the platform with students and the government of Singapore soon followed suit after a similar event.

In fairness, Zoom has been quick to respond to these abuses of its purpose. Its CEO, Eric Yuan, made a public apology, saying that the teleconferencing company was ill-prepared for the sudden influx of new users and stating that "this is a mistake and lesson learned."

In response to the concerns, Zoom has published a guide on its blog on how to avoid these types of incidents.

Last week, Zoom implemented user experience and security updates to the application, including a more visible security icon for users to see and use, suppression of meeting ID numbers and the change in the default settings to require passwords and waiting rooms for sessions.

Still, these measures aren't stringent enough for some.

One automated tool developed by security researchers can find around 100 Zoom meeting IDs in an hour and information for nearly 2,400 Zoom meetings in a single day of scans, just as an example of how easy it can be to find meetings to join.

Zoom says passwords have been enabled by default since late last year, but many people still aren’t using them.

That’s not the only risk with Zoom. The company also has an issue with its 'Company Directory' setting that could leak user emails and photos.

What's worse, video calls on the app aren’t end-to-end encrypted like the company claims, a revelation which has seen the firm announce a 90-day freeze on releasing new features to focus on fixing privacy and security issues.

People continue to use Zoom because it’s easy and free, but its competitors are making moves to catch up. There are a host of alternatives, and multiple services have made certain features free or upped the number of people who can join a call.

Zoom has found massive success during a dark time for the world and it would be disingenuous to suggest it is undeserved. However, experts suggest it is clear that it needs to up its game considerably where privacy and security is concerned if it wants to end up more than a flash-in-the-pan once the Covid-19 crisis eventually abates.