TORONTO, ONTARIO, April 3rd 2020 —
Video conferencing has been the tool of choice by those now working from home. Of these, Zoom has been the go-to vendor of choice. Zoom’s user base increased from 2 million monthly active users in February to an estimated 13 million users and growing. The rapid growth has also attracted a disproportionate number of cyber criminals and security researchers focusing on the product. New vulnerabilities seem to be appearing every few days and possibly many more in the coming days and weeks. Here’s a quick list of vulnerabilities identified so far. Most have been addressed, others may take some more time.
Quick tips for Zoom:
- Put a passcode for meetings.
- Do not click on links unless you completely trust the sender. Better still, copy and paste the text into a browser.
- Assume the session is public. Keep confidential discussions on another forum.
Zoom has the spotlight focused on them. Other video conferencing tools may not be any more secured, just less interest from hackers. It is more important to choose the right tool for the job. If security is of concern, use an authenticated platform such as Microsoft Teams for business uses. For consumers, applications such as WhatsApp and Facetime are a great option. Video conferencing has many great uses and should not be discarded. When using group video conferencing tools, here are some tips:
- Assume everything you do can be seen/heard by others on the internet.
- If you are not contributing, do not turn on your camera/microphone or give access to the application to control your camera/microphone.
- If you are hosting, ensure you are enabling some form of access controls such as a PIN or requiring a host to grant access.
- Do not click on links unless you trust the sender. A better alternative is to go directly to the site or copy/paste the web address.
If you have any concerns or would like further assistance with keeping your home and office network secured, please reach out to your Starport Team.
If you would like more information, please contact Chap Chau
Email: chap.chau@starport.ca
Telephone:(416) 479-8241 x724
