Video Conferencing Security Best Practice: 7 Do's and Don'ts
April 2021
Video conferences. Zooms. Webinars.
At the start of 2020, these concepts might have been on your radar – but they certainly wouldn’t have been your go-to option when it came to communicating with colleagues. Even less so if you were considering shareholder or investor communications.
How things change.
Today, we’re all familiar with video conferencing at work and Zooming with friends and family. And increasingly, virtual communications are becoming established and accepted as a shareholder communication channel.
Online meetings can certainly help us to obey the remote working and social distancing rules brought about by COVID-19. More than that, in many ways they have advantages over real-life meetings; they save time and are the eco-friendlier option. Virtual investor events can deliver analytics that sharpen investor outreach and can in fact see the ROI of a virtual roadshow outstripping a face-to-face event.
But along with these benefits, online meetings can also expose you to cyber risks if you don’t follow some simple rules. When you’re sharing company confidential information with customers, potential investors or current shareholders via video conference, security should be one of your top priorities.
What are the 7 video conferencing security best practices you should adopt?
- Create new meeting IDs and passwords for every meeting
Restrict access to your meetings to ensure that only authorised attendees are able to join. Create a new meeting ID and password for every meeting you schedule, and ensure your passwords are sufficiently complex with a good mix of numbers, letters and special characters. Treat meeting IDs and passwords as confidential data and only provide them to people who need to join the meeting.
- Think before you share video conference links
You wouldn’t invite anyone to a face-to-face meeting who didn’t need to be there. Think about video conferences in the same way: only share links and invitations with people who need to attend. Use secure channels to send invitations and conference IDs. Keep links and information off platforms like social media, where they could be seen by anybody.
- Lock the meeting
Once all your invited attendees have joined, make sure you lock your meeting room. Zoom bombing – when intruders interrupt scheduled meetings with the aim of disruption or cyber theft – is a known phenomenon.
- Create a waiting room and announce new joiners
This will give you, the meeting host, power over who is allowed into the meeting. A virtual waiting room enables you to see who is trying to join. Announcing new joiners means everyone is aware of who is in the room, allowing them to tailor their contributions accordingly.
- Mute new joiners
All good video conferencing platforms will enable the host to ‘mute participants on arrival’. Again, this gives you an additional layer of confidence that unwanted attendees cannot disrupt your meeting – and from a general meeting etiquette point of view, helps the conversation to flow without interruptions or interjections.
- Consider whether you always need video
We’ve all grown accustomed to seeing people in their home offices – but before you host your next online meeting, consider whether video is essential. Are there times when audio only would work? Audio-only meetings can be more secure – and your Wi-Fi will thank you too!
- Ensure your video conferencing provider has the highest levels of security
Who are you entrusting with your video conference provision? Have you investigated their security credentials? Working with a provider who has experience of secure communications is essential if you want to be sure your online meetings are as secure as possible.
Choose the right solution for secure video conferencing
There’s no doubt that video conferencing is an effective and efficient solution for today’s business meetings, cutting the need for face-to-face meetings and events, reducing your environmental impact and improving ESG performance, and maximising business continuity in a COVID-19 world.
If this blog has made you reconsider the security of your video conferencing activity, think about conducting a security audit to identify any weaknesses in your own approach. Then you can put in place your plan to adopt and embed security best practices.
If you need a solution to securely share your video conference files, presentations and details, Engage is Perivan’s Whether you need to share information with potential investors, shareholders or other stakeholders, Engage provides a secure and user-friendly solution. Find out more here.
Nothing in this document should be treated as an authoritative statement of the law. Action should not be taken as a result of this document alone. We make no warranty and accept no responsibility for consequences arising from relying on this document.
