Videoconferences are the order of the day. Either to be able to communicate with our friends and family or, to be able to carry out a good part of our work tasks and academic studies. However, are we taking the necessary security measures? Are we aware that it could even happen that unauthorized people access video calls? Cyber attacks quickly adapt to the circumstances in which they are involved and millions of people are victims on a daily basis.
How dangerous can video conferencing be?
Great care must be taken when organizing video conferences (or conference calls, of course), mainly due to the high probability that unauthorized persons can hear the call and / or access the video. Why? That unauthorized person may be a cybercriminal , either internal or external to an organization, and may have intentions of manipulating what is said in calls or what happens in video.
This is the importance of extreme care, especially when organizing video calls or conference calls with a delicate theme. Whoever is in charge of organizing and sending the invitations must pay attention to who the guests are. If guests are being selected individually, check to see if we actually mean those people. If you are sending conference invitations to contact groups, verify that the contact groups actually contain the members who should be involved.
On the other hand, there are other measures that you should take into account in the middle of the video conference or call in question:
- If you are sharing your screen , make sure you have the strictly necessary programs and / or documents open. If you were doing any previous activity that has no relation to the topic or if it is a personal process, close everything related to it. It is very likely that, by accident, you expose personal data or that of third parties. A very common failure is to show the email tray that we always have open, and it is possible that, inadvertently, we are showing confidential work information.
- If you are in a video conference where everyone has the webcam enabled, you should be careful about what is being viewed from your camera. Avoid exposing sensitive personal items like credit cards, ID numbers, passports, or whatever might be exploited in some way by a malicious user. This is even more important if the video conference is being recorded.
Pay attention to deepfakes!
Why should we be so careful if this is merely a virtual meeting? It’s not as dangerous as it sounds! Beware, in addition to all the risks already mentioned and assumed, are the deepfakes . Deepfakes allow us to manipulate the image that we show, and also the audio, so we must make sure that we are not facing a deepfake. Technological advances for this type of illegal activities benefit them greatly.
The deepfakes they arise from the Deep Learning and Learning Deep and this applies neural network simulation of large data sets to create a fake product. Advances in this technological field occur so quickly and the results are extremely surprising. Anyone who is not aware of this type of practice or if they were, but do not remember it at the time, could fall into the trap of a deepfake.
It is possible to find free solutions that provide us with infinite possibilities to manipulate reality, according to our wishes and why not, create a reality that we like. FakeApp and DeepFakeLab are two of the best solutions that we could find at no cost. In some cases it is necessary to have a higher level of knowledge regarding video editing tools and similar programs.
Many times it is difficult to size, but this type of situation can occur and many misunderstandings can occur due to a deepfake. In most cases, the deepfake goes unnoticed and very successfully fulfills its mission. So what is the best security measure against malicious people? More than anything, be very careful when organizing video conferences and conference calls.
However, the most essential measure for everything else to work is using encrypted connection, not just for video conferencing. That is, the organization should implement VPN services to establish a secure connection to the most sensitive work resources, in addition to ensuring that the traffic is encrypted. Furthermore, it is possible to free some services from the use of the VPN so that we can safeguard bandwidth for the most critical services.
