Video conferencing app Zoom has hired Facebook's chief security officer Alex Stamos as an advisor, as it responds to rising security and privacy concerns.

Stamos is a computer scientist and adjunct professor at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. He was previously the security chief at Yahoo, and has also worked for Loudcloud, NCC Group Domain Services, ISEC Partners and Artemis.

Stamos will help guide a new advisory board to improve its privacy and security.

The hire comes as Zoom has had a lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California by a shareholder, accusing the app of overstating its privacy standards and failing to disclose that its service was not end-to-end encrypted.

Shareholder Michael Drieu claimed in a court filing that a string of recent media reports highlighting the privacy flaws in Zoom’s application have led to the company’s stock, which had rallied for several days in the beginning of the year, to fall.

Last week, Zoom chief executive Eric Yuan apologised to users and said he recognised “that we have fallen short of the community's - and our own - privacy and security expectations".

Usage of Zoom has spiked during the Coronavirus self-isolation measures and sharp rise in people working from home.

But there has been increasing criticism of the app over the lack of end-to-end encryption, as well as routing of traffic through China.

In March, Stamos tweeted calls for Zoom to be more transparent and roll out a 30-day security plan. Yuan responded by calling him to ask for help building security and privacy capabilities as an outside consultant, Reuters reported.

“To be clear, I am not an employee or executive of Zoom and I don’t speak for the company,” wrote Stamos in a blog. "I have refrained from any public comment on Zoom or discussions with journalists since my call with Eric, but in the interest of transparency I think it’s important to disclose this work.

“Zoom has some important work to do in core application security, cryptographic design and infrastructure security, and I’m looking forward to working with Zoom’s engineering teams on those projects,” he added.

Earlier this month, video chat app Houseparty had to counter its own security concerns from users, responding that a commercial rival was engaging in a smear campaign. The move followed several days of internet rumours and social media posts claiming that downloading the app caused other services, such as Netflix and Spotify, to have data personal data breached.

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