Your Video Conference Has Been Hacked
Employees around the world are working remotely full-time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many are turning to applications like Zoom to meet online. Unfortunately, cybercriminals see this trend as a new opportunity to attack people for profit. Therefore, you must protect these platforms so your company is safe from costly and embarrassing security breaches.
Common video conference attacks:
Video Bombing: This involves uninvited guests disrupting your meetings. They may show inappropriate images, shout hate messages, or harass attendees in private chats.
Compromise: In this situation, employees accidentally reveal confidential information, such as financial data or patient health information, to unauthorized people.
Spying: Hackers sneak into the meeting and collect information through eavesdropping, recording, and screen capturing.
Breaching: Hackers steal the meeting admin’s login credentials then take contact information and classified files.
If your company does not prevent these attacks on video platforms, they can lead to criminals:
- Using the stolen information to create phishing emails.
- Leaking confidential information to the public, potentially destroying the reputation of the company, employees, and customers.
- Selling personally information on the dark web so those affected fall victim of identity theft.
- Selling your trade secrets to competitors, thereby causing you to lose revenue, customers, and competitive positioning.
You can prevent these attacks on video meetings by:
- Sticking with business-grade platforms. Programs such as Microsoft Teams follow industry and IT data protection standards such as HIPAA, ISO 27001, ISO 27018, SSAE16 SOC1, and SOC2.
- Restrict access to your meetings. Password protect meetings and limit the reuse of access codes. Also, allow only invited and signed in users to join in. Once all the guests join, lock the meeting to new participants. Finally, kick out anybody who is not supposed to be in the session.
- Be careful with what you share and do not show your screen if you do not need to. Hide anything in your camera view that you do not want anybody to see. If possible, use a virtual background instead of revealing your workspace.
- Update your meeting software regularly and make sure attendees do the same. Hackers can exploit security holes in out-of-date software versions.
- Only join meetings when using secure Wi-Fi networks. By using unprotected networks, especially public Wi-Fi that does not require a password, leave meetings easily accessible to hackers.
- Watch out for phishing emails. Criminals are impersonating video conference vendors and sending out malicious emails. Look at the email address and confirm that it is from a trusted sender. Also, look at the meeting link and check that it does not have .exe in the text. If you have any doubts, call the meeting organizer to follow up.
Create an online meeting policy with employees. Require employees to review a document outlining meeting security, etiquette and best practices. This policy can include:
- Using the company approved meeting platform only
- Securing the meetings with passwords
- Requiring permission to record meetings
- Hiding confidential materials or information from camera view
- Being aware of your surroundings
- Muting your microphone when not speaking
If you are interested in learning more information about a business-grade video conferencing platform, such as Microsoft Teams, you can speak to one of our certified IT consultants. Contact Radiant Technology Solutions Today.
727-493-4723
