Oct 23, 2020
Even before the pandemic, more and more companies were starting to allow employees to work remotely. Since March of this year, that number increased significantly, and now many businesses have shifted to being completely remote indefinitely. One of the most important tools that allow teams to work together even in different locations is video conferencing software. Having the ability to meet as a team over video often works just as well as in-person meetings.
Unfortunately, there are risks that come with using this kind of software. With the rise in popularity, video conferencing programs have been experiencing security and privacy crises as well as data breaches. Luckily, there are steps you can take to make your video conferencing more secure:
Keeping software up to date is a good practice for any type of software, and video conferencing software is no different. This is especially true if the software you’re using is more than five years old.
If you are using software or equipment that is more than five years old, it may be time to upgrade. When upgrading, make sure you take into account what kind of data encryption is used, how callers log into the system, and how the system manages data. If you need help updating your software, you can find tutorials on YouTube like these Microsoft Teams Update and Windows Updates videos.
This is one of the easiest ways to make your video meetings more secure. Don’t reuse passwords you use for other things, and make the password a complex combination of lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers, and special characters.
You should always create a new meeting ID. When reusing the same IDs, it makes it much easier for meeting bombers to attend and potentially hijack your meeting. You also want to make sure you generate a random meeting ID and don’t use your personal meeting ID.
There are a few ways you can do this. You can require passwords as we’ve already mentioned. You can also disable the “join before host” option and use the waiting room so that the host has to admit each participant. Once everyone who should be in the meeting has been admitted, the host can usually “lock” the meeting so no one else can enter.
Just as you shouldn’t open suspicious links from people you don’t know, if you get unexpected video conference invitations, you also should not click on those. Make sure the link you are clicking is through your video conferencing software, and make sure it’s coming from the person you are expecting it to come from.
While this is important for security and privacy, it’s also good etiquette to be professional and to follow the rules established by your business for video conferencing. Make sure you know how to mute yourself when needed, be aware of when your camera and microphone are on, follow the established procedures for screen sharing, and be sure to alert everyone on the meeting if you are recording.
Read more about video conferencing best practices.
When employees are working remotely, there are a lot of cybersecurity concerns. This is one of the advantages of having managed IT services. With a dedicated IT team, you can rest assured that all of your online meetings, documents, and communications are secure, and the private data your business relies on is protected.
You can also use secure video conferencing and phone/voice services like those offered by our partners at RingCentral, and Mitel.
For more tips for remote workers, download our Ultimate Remote Work Security Guide.
