Education


Technology update How secure are virtual meetings?


What would have happened if the Covid-19 pandemic had broken out 3 or 10 years ago? Video conferencing was nowhere near as prevalent or accessible. Collaboration, as a market, was in its in- fancy. The concept of agile working was just that – a concept, and far from realisation. Availability of collaborative technology is almost universal, bur not without its problems, and with even the UK Cabinet conducting meetings via Zoom, the issue of security has leaped into the foreground.


Leading contenders


In the last few years, the num- ber of solutions competing in the


collaboration sector has


escalated, but two have come to lead the current crop – Mi- crosoft Teams and Zoom Video Communications. There are,


er businesses across the world can stay connected and opera- tional. We appreciate the New York Attorney General's engage- ment on these issues and are happy to provide her with the requested information,". The BBC was one of those to take up the matter: “Zoom has


of modern communication and collaboration for HSBC. BT Group is acting as the integra- tion partner. HSBC agreed to consolidate all of its communications ser- vices onto Zoom’s video-first unified communications plat- form, including video confer-


in popularity. Fortunately, Zoom has fixed these issues. The new Zoom 5.0 update, introduces AES 256-bit GCM encryption, which the company says will offer "increased protection" of data in transit and resistance to tampering. Although ques- tions remain about whether


word-protected meetings, and the removal of meeting IDs from the Zoom interface so it'll be harder for callers to hack them. To combat the so-called "Zoom-bombing" phenomenon, which involves bad actors join- ing a meeting they weren't in- vited to, Zoom has introduced some room control features, such as the ability to remove and ban participants, lock meetings, report users and enable waiting rooms when a meeting is underway.


Teams security


Zoom has been most people's choice for video conferencing during the coronavirus but has been plagued by privacy and security issues since its boom in popularity.


of course, other platforms in contention including Google, LifeSize, Poly, Starleaf, Clev- ertouch Stage and Kramer Via. Both with its ease-of-use and free or low-cost signup, Zoom was grabbing market share. But Zoom, in particular. came under fresh high-level scrutiny as its popularity soared during the coronavirus pandemic. New York's attorney general has written to the firm raising concerns over its ability to cope with the rise in user num- bers. Zoom’s data security and privacy measures have been questioned.


The letter from the office of New York Attorney General, Letitia James, asked Zoom whether it had reviewed its se- curity measures since its pop- ularity surged. It also pointed out that in the past the app had been slow to address se- curity issues.


A company spokesperson replied


saying: "Zoom takes


its users' privacy, security, and trust extremely seriously. During the Covid-19 pandem- ic, we are working around-the- clock to ensure that hospitals, universities, schools, and oth-


had security flaws in the past, including a vulnerability which allowed an attacker to remove attendees from meetings, spoof messages from users and hi- jack shared screens. Another saw Mac users forced into calls without their knowledge.” Zoom replied, saying: “Glob-


ally, 2,000 institutions rang- ing from the world's largest financial services companies to leading telecommunications providers, government agen- cies, universities, healthcare and telemedicine practices have done exhaustive security reviews of our user, network and data centre layers confi- dently selecting Zoom for com- plete deployment.” Sensitive content


In the last quarter of 2019, Zoom announced that HSBC, one of the world’s largest bank- ing and financial services or- ganisations, will standardize on Zoom. With licenses available for over 290,000 users and Conference Room Connectors to over 5,500 hardware end- points, this enterprise-wide deployment represents both Zoom’s largest account sold by initial revenue and a new phase


encing, audio conferencing and screen sharing across mo- bile, desktop, and conference rooms, for both internal and external


meetings. By stan-


dardizing on Zoom, HSBC will consolidate costs and create an enhanced, frictionless experi- ence for end users.


“I am proud to welcome HSBC to the Zoom family,” said Eric S. Yuan, CEO of Zoom. “My team looks forward to con- tinuing to work with HSBC to provide their users frictionless communications experiences, quickly innovate new features and functionality, and deliver them happiness every day.” Such a large project confirms our conclusions that Zoom is a solid. stable and reliable plat- form. Most of all it is simple to use and we have had no hes- itation in recommending it to those who have been forced into home working at short no- tice.


Security response


Zoom has been most people's choice for video conferencing during the coronavirus but has been plagued by privacy and security issues since its boom


Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365: “Now more than ever, people need to know that their virtual conversations are private and secure”


this amounts end-to-end en- cryption. Other


security and privacy


features include a new grouped security menu, default pass-


What about security in the fa- vourite of many corporates, Microsoft Teams? Jared Spa- taro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365 comments: “Almost overnight, video con- ferencing has become a big part of our daily life and work. A few weeks in, my team and I at Microsoft have adjusted to the new reality of seeing each other’s homes, complete with dogs, cats, and other family members. Everyone around the world is now working, learning, and connecting with colleagues, friends, and fam- ily through the power of tech- nology. From kitchen tables to living room couches, and from home offices doubling as home schools—people are relying on Microsoft Teams to work and learn.”


“Now more than ever, people need to know that their virtual conversations are private and secure,” he continues. “At Mic- rosoft, privacy and security are never an afterthought. It’s our commitment to you—not only during this challenging time, but always. Here’s how we’re working to earn your trust ev- ery day with Microsoft Teams. We provide privacy and security controls for video conferences in Teams. We offer a variety of privacy and security controls to allow you to manage who par- ticipates in your meetings and who has access to meeting in- formation.” “For


example, you decide


who from outside your organi- zation can join your meetings directly, and who should wait in the lobby for someone to let them in. You can also remove participants during a meeting, designate “presenters” and “attendees,” and control which meeting participants can pres- ent content. And with guest access, you can add people from outside your organization but still retain control over your data. Moderation allows you to control who is and isn’t allowed to post and share content. And advanced artificial intelligence (AI) monitors chats to help pre- vent negative behaviours like bullying and harassment.” When recording a meeting, all participants are notified when a recording starts, and online


P12 AV News May 2020


V News November 2019


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