The Surge in Video Conferencing- Are We Maintaining Good CyberSecurity

With technology becoming integral for daily activities, cyber attackers are targeting it for their own benefits. As most people are staying at home and following social distancing, video conferring is the ideal way to stay connected with loved ones. Not only that, offices and companies are using major video chatting apps to collaborating with their employees, and most formal meetings are also happening on Skype or Zoom.  

There is no doubt that internet attackers see this as an opportunity as they can now try their hands on video meeting apps. Cybercriminals have tied it already, and on many occasions, they have successfully stolen chunks of sensitive information discussed in business meetings. Your video conferencing is not as safe as you consider it, and there are dozens of privacy and cybersecurity issues hanging around you as long as you stay in a meeting.

There are many things that users still need to learn for improving their cyber hygiene while using video calls. Just a few weeks earlier, there has been a gigantic surge in domain typosquatting, where internet thefts are buying domains that are identical to the popular websites and then sending out invites.

We have now learned one important thing while joining a link that its domain is original and not the fake one. You should always look for the domain name in a joining link while joining video meetings. If you are a business owner, then you need to be aware of this threat and try to educate your employees about it. Tell them to always check the originality of the domain name before joining or using a video call.

You should also make sure that your video conferencing ID is secured as many third parties hunt for unsecured IDs. Unsecured video conferencing IDs are a pretty easy hunt for the attackers. There are hundreds of news warning us about third parties taking control of the conferencing sessions and interfering in the middle of serious meetings. Some are reporting inappropriate content that was played during their video conference.  

The truth is even more dreadful as the internet attackers or third parties can be a silent listener in a meeting and may try to show you that he is one of you. This silent listener in the video chats can listen to the sensitive subjects of your business even it will see everything you show via screen sharing.

There are certain bad happening during video conferencing in recent past weeks. I would love to share one of them: One day, an organization’s meeting was going on the Zoom Cloud Meetings, and there was a silent listener in one of the participants who doesn’t belong from the organization at all. When the speaker was presenting his speech in the meeting, the silent listener suddenly turned on his screen sharing and wrote “Stupid” in huge size letters. This was a seriously disappointing turning point in video conferencing technology. The cybercriminal was thrown out of the meeting shortly after he revealed himself in the meeting.

It is not about how unsafe video conferencing can be, but it is a matter of “Are we failing to use high-quality cybersecurity?” Internet offenders will do their job, but will you make yourself and your business meetings secure enough to deal with such cases? Or are we developing ourselves to be like a lamb to the slaughter?  

It is indeed an important these days, and we need to upgrade our knowledge so that we can cope with these video chat cybersecurity issues.

6 Ways to Enhance Your Cyber Hygiene During Video Conferencing

1. Call host or Video Meeting Host should limit who can join a meeting with passwords so that no stranger can enter into your private meetings.
2. Always use a new password in every video conference as older passwords can be shared with someone else.
3. Never allow video meetings to start before the host joins.
4. Allow Screen sharing only for trustworthy employees and participants.
5. Enable file transfer only between authenticated participants or simply turn it off in case you don’t need it.
6. Check the settings about when you remove someone from your meetings can they rejoin your meetings.

When you secure your meetings with several cybersecurity measures, it becomes almost impossible for cyber lawbreakers to join and interfere in your meetings. You should also make sure that the service you are using has end to end encryption.