Work from home in COVID: videoconferencing with security in mind

Let us first have a brief view of what COVID is and how it has affected our businesses, studies, and daily life routines.

Impact of COVID-19 on our lives:

From the past couple of scores, the globe has not faced any severe pandemic except Corona Virus also known as COVID-19. During this pandemic, the whole world was advised to stay indoors. This disease spreads by a touch of hands or little droplets that eject during our speech. Subsequently, many people got jobless, many small businesses lost their existence, many students got their studies disturbed for granted, and worst from them all, causing many casualties.

This pandemic taught us a lot of things on the contrary. Firstly we understood the cruel zoo culture, we understood that our luxuries cost a lot more than our needs, that we can live without luxuries and that how we had polluted the atmosphere in our daily lives. Due to this pandemic, the world is healing to its original.

The following article will cover these aspects:

• How COVID has made major businesses modify their operational structures
• Ways through which important information can be exploited
• The aspects of video conferencing and how security can be perpetuated.
• The measure that can be taken to scrutinize the business and personal information

After all this preliminary discussion, lets now come to analyze the security concerns regarding videoconferencing during the time of the pandemic.

Businesses of Major industries

During this pandemic, the daily needed merchandise was still being manufactured. While many small factories were shut down, there were some industries where machines were running all the time to produce the most needed items. These merchandises were clothes, food, and medicines. Although these industries were running their machines nevertheless only the required staff was called for the work. Only technicians were called because they had to do the physical work but no compromise was made on their safety. The staff was strictly made to follow the orders SOPs by WHO (World Health Organization).

The office work was done by the employees worked through their room as freelancers. The term Work from Home was being used on a large scale during the season. When it comes to business and any initiative, the thing that is required the most is new ideas and talks on present going projects. In this regard, conferences are made on a large scale in any good and established firm.

It’s all about ideas and ideas that come from face to face live chats. In any business conference, professionals sit around each other and give their ideas on any decided project. In this way, if one employee states any idea on any coming project and other employee thinks that this idea is not the best one, they will think of another one. This process goes on until they find the best ides.

During a lockdown, every office worker was staying indoors; the technology that saved the existence of any present working industry was Video Conferencing.

Let’s have some discussion regarding what video conferencing is, and how important it was to maintain the security so that the integrity of businesses was not threatened.

To begin with, video conferencing is a technology that allows any group of individuals to have a live video call with everyone in the group. If the group contains ten people for instance, then each one of them can see and talk to others simultaneously. It creates a sort of virtual conference room. Different applications allow you to do video conferencing on good quality.

Video conferencing has been an ultimatum for live meetings during the pandemic but everything has two aspects, and its own pros and cons. Hacker block is one of them.

Hacking

Hacking is a technological process through which anyone or even DDoS-attackers can get into your computer and may steal, modify, or delete your data for illegal uses. This may threaten the security and integrity of businesses. Hacking is a serious crime. By the use of it, you can go to jail and made to pay a huge amount as a fine. Hacker blocks access for a person’s very own account concerning blackmail by using their private pictures. A hacker can do a lot of things. For instance, hacker blocks access to your computer system, he can get access to your bank account, your business information r phone calls, emails, and messages, and personal information.

For your business, hacker blocks might be the worst nightmare for you. He can make you do anything he wants by blackmailing you. In this digital world, where everyone is connected to the internet and in a way every person on the internet is connected to the other one has created a global village. Because of this, many people suffer from emotional distress or trauma. If any person is on the internet, he is already on the verge of getting a hacker blocked.

Many companies got hacked before and faced a lot of loss for their company, both financially and reputational wise. When any company website or any block of it gets hacked, it remains in the news for a long time. Hacker blocks the website for many reasons.

Dubsmash, for example, is a very famous website that got hacked once and the number of accounts on it was 161 million. Information on all of these account users was in the hacker’s hand. He could have used to blackmail millions of people and get whatever he wants.

Now, let’s analyze how we can keep the businesses running, and clear out the element of threat. In other words, how can we maintain the videoconferencing, with serious security measures in mind?

Security and safety of personal data is the biggest issue, and cause of concern for any company. Hacker blocks the website of any company;  the access for the employee to his business data. Many companies have arranged video conferencing for their employees during the lockdown. For theses uplifted reasons, a company should always be aware of a hacker as a hacker blocks access of employees to the website or vice versa. If a hacker blocks your access to the internet of tries to blackmail you, it is a serious crime and as a responsible citizen, you must report that to the police.

To solve digital crimes or crimes done by using the internet of leaking someone’s privacy, a new department is introduced referred to as Cyber Crime investigation. It is named after the crimes that take place on online or social media platforms. Cybercrime is the crime that manipulates information illegally either for false use or for blackmailing.

Malware removal service and Cloudflare enterprise are some solutions to this problem. Many companies have direct contacts with cybercrime investigation departments and Cloudflare enterprises to get the check of any miscellaneous activity on their digital platform. Website security testing tools are also being improvised during the last couple of years.

For any company website security testing tools, direct contact with the Cybercrime department and Cloudflare enterprise are of great importance and have helped them to a great extend.

The businesses and people were not aware of cybercrime activities previously. If there happened any suspicious activity, it was thought to a normal software or hardware fault. Hacking was done in the late twentieth century when some teenage boys hired for a phone call company used to misdirect the calls and listen to private calls. After some years, another activity like it happened. With that, the number of hacking cases was increasing rapidly.

When the number was reached on an extreme level, then the awareness for it was publicized and adequate measures were taken. But until then, it was out of the hands and it becomes nearly impossible to control it. If it was serious before, it would have been in control. The consequences of lack of awareness are still being faced by a lot of companies.

Luckily a major control over hacking has been done. Malware removal services and Cloudflare enterprises have been working to control cyber crimes day night.

Diving back to linking it particularly with the video-conferencing, whenever a company calls for a videoconference for its employees, the first thing you must have is a computer and a strong internet connection. The same apparatus is required for hacking a handsome computer. You must have antivirus software in you your computer, (we will surely talk about that in a moment), malware removal service, and website security testing tools to check if a website is secure for you and you must have contact with Cloudflare enterprise. 

It is nearly impossible for every single employee to have these contacts. For this reason, companies provide security on their own to their employees. If a company does not assure you of your privacy security than the company might be having no contacts with any Cloudflare enterprise, malware removal service, and website security tools.

In any firm, there remains a separate department for these kinds of matters. They assure you of your data. But the thing is that if once you are connected to the internet, then you are definitely on the verge of getting hacked. Only being on the internet increases the probability that you will be hacked possibly.

To increase in that, if you do not have any malware removal service tool, website security testing tool, or any other antivirus software then the chance of your computer getting hacked increases to a large extent. So if you are using the internet and you have work to do online then you must follow these SOPs. Furthermore, personal contact with any cybercrime specialist will be a good step to overcome hacker’s mindset.

Videoconferencing is mostly conducted on applications like Microsoft meetings, Zoom, and much more. Zoom is the most known application for online video meetings. The most trusted apps used for videoconferencing are the ones with tight security.

On March 30, the FBI unleashed a report saying that zoom meetings are getting hacked day after day. Zoombombing is the term that is mostly used while we discuss videoconferencing hacks.

As everyone is connected to the internet while having a video conference, whilst if a hacker hacks any single user computer then he is likely to get access to all the employee computers in that chain.

If a hacker successfully hacks your computer system during a videoconference, then he has done it to listen to that conference. This might be pre-planned or the hacker might sell the information to you Rivalry Company. One sure thing is if you are hacked, then there is only a 1% chance for you to find out that someone is listening to you. You only know that you are hacked if hacker blocks your access to the system.

There are various methods by which you can have ultimate safety from any hacking activity.

Moving on, now let’s analyze the security measures that you can take on your own to ensure the safety of your information from cyber-attackers.

• Blockage of unneeded sites

When surfing on the internet, you might come across websites that never open or if they open then start redirecting again and again. Those websites are contaminated by a virus that might be operated by the hacker himself. Those websites also pop up a lot of unwanted advertisements. When you click any advertisement, files start downloading chidingly; it starts redirecting and never stops. These are some signs that some miscellaneous activities are going to happen with you shortly. And some of the websites say “not secure” initially on their search bar. This is also a major sign that this site is going to exhibit some illegal activity with your computer.

So if your jobs are to surf the internet for a long time, then you must block unneeded websites from your browser. Some websites also ask for permission to send you notifications. If you allow them then you are inviting the hacker to hack your computer on your own. Website security testing tools must be used in addition to that as the help in malware removal service.

The idea of restricting any website to send any notifications to you might prove helpful to safeguard your computer. Method of doing so is as follows:

• Right-click on the name of the website.
• Click Site Setting.
• A window will generate showing all types of notifications and permissions.
• Block the ones that you think are not safe

This method is an improved version of the malware removal service and website security testing tools.

• Use of different softwares for security

If the hacker is lucky and got access to your computer then the first thing that you can do is to use antivirus softwares again and again. If you are pretty convinced that your computer is affected by the virus then contact any good antivirus software professionals for help. The software is a sort of Cloudflare enterprise and provides malware removal service. The software that provides the best security against hacking and virus are Avast antivirus, Windows protector, and Norton Lifelock. The International market if full of different antivirus softwares but the above mentioned are some of the best. Some of these might be paid software. But your data is really important then it is worth a little investment. After you have bought an antivirus software, all you have to do is scan your computer again and again. Scan it when you turn it on, scan it after downloading any file, scan it after you’ve received an email even scan it after a video conference for your confirmation. Cloudflare enterprise will also advise to this again and again just to make sure you are free from any danger. Website security testing tools must be used again and again as the help in malware removal services. and tighten the videoconference security.

• Sending valid invites

If you are inviting any person for a video call then send a custom programmed invite that must vanish after some time. For the security of your videoconference, you must do something unique on your own. The invitation should be programmed in a way that after the person has joined it, it must get outdated and it should be unique for every user. In addition to that, it should be forwarded to anyone. For elaboration, if any user wants to add any other person to the conference, then he must not be able to do it on his own. Only the admin or in charge of the meeting could be allowed to do so. Cloudflare enterprise, malware removal service, and website security testing tools are of no use unless you do not do something on your own.

Threats for leakage of your data come to existence when you allow the use of a microphone, webcam, and internal memory to the host application. When these permissions are granted than for the hacker it is a golden chance to break into your privacy and steal, leak or modify your personal as well as business information, and misuse it.

• Authorization of the users

For the admin, whenever a user is invited for a video conference, he must be authorized first. This authorization must be done in many ways, For instance, there should be code to enter the conference, or different strategies, such as face recognition, fingerprint verification if their computer is latest enough to enable fingerprint lock or even a simple password. Still, some information should be kept secret or coded. Make sure to double-check the participants that are a part of videoconferencing. Locking the meeting room once all the participants have joined, may also ensure the security by preventing any intruders from joining in.

• Encryption of personal data

If possible, encrypting data for the users is the ultimate remedy for video conferencing with security in mind. Encryption of the data leaves far behind Cloudflare enterprise, malware removal service, and website security testing tools. Encryption of data means to code the data in a pre-planned way so that some stranger does not understand the data. Encryption is mostly done in departments like CIA, CID, and other secret intelligence agencies to communicate with each other. In simpler words, it is like coding your entire data. However, the encryption level of data depends on the sensitivity of the information.

The radiation of data could also be picked up by hackers and misused. That is how far technology has gone. Thus it is very important to control the data radiation.

• Secure the storage of data in computer

Often times, these meetings are recorded and saved in the computer for future uses. The hackers can steal information from your data storage through malicious tools and softwares. Thus, in order to keep the information secure, keep the data storage separate from other networks.

The storage devices of even the users must be tightly managed and controlled to keep a check and prevent security violations. The information can easily travel through an external or internal network.

• Role of government

It is a law to maintain the security of videoconferencing, and not just the cause of concern for the company only. However, the role of government concerning cybercrimes has not been much responsive yet some recruitments have been done to have new ideas. The young generation is the best antidote for hacking. Youth should be invited to join cybercrime investigation agencies to exhibit their patriotism. The government should take serious measures to eliminate this crime from the root.

Conclusion

Hoping this article was of sufficient knowledge for you. It is quite a justified concern to be worried over the security of your personal or private information getting misused, especially in the times of COVID-19, when almost all the businesses have shifted online. Keep in mind the security measure, and take the necessary precautions, as mentioned above to maintain the integrity of your business information.

The recent increase in cyber-attacks and crimes have indeed increased the security concerns for businesses. Thus it is highly essential to take the security measures. It is quite a tough task, but prevention is always better than regret.