“Zoom on Digitization” - Tools for Secure Video Conferencing | Free Antivirus

Since the corona crisis at the latest, video conferences have been part of everyday office life. Instead of Zoom, the following secure online meeting tools can be used.

If you think back to the time before the Corona crisis, professional video conferencing was something that only large companies could afford. Huge video systems that cost a few thousand euros per month that require special hardware, training, and service maintenance. Since then, Germany in particular has experienced rapid digitization. Travel restrictions, the ban on contact, and switching to the home office have not only urged large companies to create alternative communication options. Small and medium-sized companies had to find an affordable communication solution - and it did so fairly quickly.

Should You Use Zoom for Video Conferencing?

In the meantime, expensive video conferencing systems are almost no longer necessary, because anyone with a laptop and Internet access can hold video conferences with many participants at low cost or even free of charge. The number of users of such video conference tools has increased enormously due to the Corona crisis. At the well-known video conference provider Zoom, for example, the number of users grew by 110% in March 2020 compared to the previous month. However, hasty digitization also has its pitfalls. Due to the huge influx of new users, the servers of the software companies often come up against the load limits and one thing above all applies: high numbers of users offer attack surfaces for cybercriminals. The company Zoom felt this painfully.

Zoom is one of the most widely used tools for video conferencing and has also seen a huge increase in users over the past few months. 300 million people currently use Zoom every day and that is no wonder because it is easy and intuitive to use, the entry-level version is free and guarantees a stable video connection. It also seems to be a good choice for company meetings, since only one registered user is required for a meeting and the other participants can simply be invited via a link.

However, Zoom has come under fire for allegedly poor data protection and security measures: Zoom has been accused of not using a standard encryption algorithm, the data is not end-to-end encrypted and it is therefore theoretically possible to make calls and to decrypt meetings and forward them to third parties.

How Safe Is Zoom?

Many companies felt the so-called “zoom-bombing” when they noticed that strangers were suddenly gaining access to their virtual meeting rooms by guessing meeting IDs and adding unwanted or even repulsive content. Most recently, Zoom suffered major image damage through the leak of over 500,000 data from users on the Internet. The company promised improvement by quickly setting up a waiting room in online meetings, in which the host has to activate the participants individually. Also, all online meetings are now given automatic password protection, the complexity of which can be changed by an IT admin. A new version "Zoom 5.0" should make the process data protection compliant and take into account the self-declared goal of Zoom, to offer the "safest platform" for video conferencing tools in the long term. The company's image has suffered damage that can only be restored slowly and with difficulty. There is no question here that the establishment of new security measures was and is urgently necessary.

As a user, this means: Before you join a Zoom meeting, ask yourself about the purpose of the video conference. For private calls, Zoom is a very easy-to-use platform and very suitable for video calls with friends and family. For business meetings and the exchange of sensitive company data, however, most offices still advise against zooming. The research institute “Citizen Lab” came to a very damning verdict and described Zoom as “not suitable for secrets”.

Secure Online Meeting Tools

There are plenty of alternatives, but even they cannot be recommended without reservation: GoTo Webinar, Skype for Business, Slack, Google Hangouts and Amazon Chime are just some of the alternative video conferencing tools that are currently successful. They should be easy to use, flexible, stable, inexpensive, and, above all, safe. The following three examples of data protection compliant video conference tools that make everyday work easier:

·         Powerful Video Conferencing in Microsoft Teams:

Teams are the successor to Skype for Business and the central place for teamwork in the Microsoft world with an internal communication system consisting of chat, video conferences, and file exchange. With powerful Microsoft servers and a good connection, Teams offers HD quality for video telephony. The basic version is free of charge, in connection with Microsoft 365 the user pays a monthly price. In addition, online meetings or even web seminars in the form of live events can be created and carried out. Participation by registration is also possible, but it is also possible to participate anonymously via the browser, so that communication can also take place across companies.

·         Stable Online Meetings with Cisco Web-Ex Meeting:

With the in-house video conference tool "WebEx Meeting", Cisco offers a complete solution for users. Since 50-1000 participants can be managed via WebEx, it is recommended for larger companies. WebEx offers very stable video conferences with very good audio and picture quality. In addition to video conferences and integrated conference calls, the complete solution also includes streaming of meetings via Facebook Live.

·         Jitsi Meet Relies on Data Protection:

The previously relatively unknown Jitsi Meet has sprung up like a mushroom. The tool has clearly benefited from the data protection problems of the other providers because it is known for putting a lot of emphasis on data protection. At Jitsi, customer data is stored on a data protection-friendly server and personal information or content is not passed on to third parties. Jitsi is currently highly regarded as a zoom alternative among technology-savvy users because the open-source platform does not require user accounts for video conferences and is end-to-end encrypted for video telephony with two participants. This encryption is not yet available in video chats with more than two participants. The tool has a small disadvantage: Jitsi is more suitable for small groups,

Of course, many more video conferencing platforms offer an excellent alternative to Zoom or other platforms. Also, no platform is 100% secure or “unbreakable”, as the current discussions on security gaps in Microsoft Teams underline. In addition to data protection, the capacity of the server often decides whether it is a success or failure. Especially in the current crisis, the server load is extremely high and must first be absorbed. The current change to digitization will have a major impact on our future working life, even after Corona. The progress made in such a short period of time is enormous and harbors the enormous potential for cyber attacks, some of which are new or not yet foreseeable.

Corporate Video Conference Security

So it is currently important to train employees on the "New Normal" and to make them aware of the danger of new types of attacks to minimize the risk of becoming a victim of a cyber attack. With such attacks, it is particularly difficult to reliably identify or verify the communication partner. Employees usually feel very secure within the internal communication tools, although the accesses can also be stolen via phishing attacks, for example, and so there is a risk that attackers will infiltrate internal company groups.

Protegent360 offers training solutions that support your employees to be vigilant at the right moments and to behave securely in the home office so that data protection and IT security are also guaranteed at the next video conference. Special simulated phishing attacks (e.g. concerning Corona) and e-learning modules (e.g. on collaboration or video conference tools) convey up-to-date IT security content in a motivating way. So test our free e-learning module now, with a focus on security in the home office.

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