Videoconferencing application Zoom has been taking heat over “bombing,” or uninvited individuals appearing in Zoom users’ virtual meetings.
For casual users, bombers are an inconvenience. For businesses holding more virtual meetings amid the pandemic, they could be alarming if company teams share confidential or proprietary information in meetings.
Ted Clouser, president and CEO of PCA Technology Solutions in Little Rock, doesn’t recommend Zoom because, he said, it didn’t make security a priority. Zoom has been working on a fix. Clouser sees Microsoft Teams, GoToMeeting and Google Hangouts as better options.
Along with other IT experts, he recommends that businesses train both virtual meeting organizers and attendees regardless of which application they use. Clouser suggests businesses also write policies on videoconferencing.
Security is “very dependent on the user knowing what they’re doing, which is not something that’s happening right now that everybody’s rushing to videoconferences and there’s just a time crunch,” said Chad Knutson, president of SBS CyberSecurity in Little Rock.
In addition, people had been taking screenshots of their meetings to post on social media, said Gino Capito, chief technology officer for Telecomp of Rogers, and many didn’t realize information about how to access their meetings was visible in those photos.
All three said organizers must ensure that they can see and control who joins a meeting, and that passwords and login instructions aren’t shared improperly.
Knutson said businesses should risk-assess to determine the amount of security needed for each meeting, e.g., marketing meetings may not require sharing customer information.
