The difficulty associated with isolation, working from home or greatly reducing employee hours, has made it challenging in continuing open communication amongst colleagues and clients. Most businesses have a basic standard for remote capability, however not every business is designed to ease into a remote setting, which forces those businesses too quickly adapt not knowing potential risks they may have incurred.
During 2020, one of the most utilized platforms was Zoom Video to continue the connection of business to business, staff, clients and more. Although Zoom was established back in 2011, according to Title Law Quarterly, Zoom usage has grown from 10 million users in 2019 to 300 million users during the 2020 pandemic. This platform has served as the 2020 tool for businesses to continue to stay afloat. As this platform has been a liberator for most, it may leave you with many questions such as how can I trust my conferencing will be private? How can I trust that any stored communication is safely stored?
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Zoom has “misled users since 2016, offering ‘end-to-end, 256-bit encryption’ to secure users’ communication.” Promising a method that is supposedly securing your communications between sender and receiver, can only lead you to wonder how many businesses make that same promise and in exchange provide you with a lower standard of security? From a business standpoint, skimping on sufficient security practices makes a business appear irresponsible and in fact, will eventually be extremely destructive to your business. Where did your stored communication go? According to the FTC, Zoom also “misled some users who wanted to store recorded meetings on the company’s cloud storage by falsely claiming that those meetings were encrypted immediately after the meeting.” FTC alleges that the stored communications were stored unencrypted “for up to 60 days on Zoom servers” before Zoom transported this to the cloud storage. How can you trust stored information that is not in your control? Zoom has since consented to an upgraded security program, which you can view on their website in Trust Center.
It cannot be stressed enough for businesses to not only be aware, however, to know the principles and values that come with sufficient security programs. Security incidents occur constantly, and as much as businesses feel they are prepared, you are never fully prepared when you are still learning. Your business is faced is at risk now and it is extremely essential to structure your business to be compliant. If your business needs assistance, Global Cybersecurity Solutions, LLC is here to keep an eye on your security so you can feel confident and ready to endure the perpetual risks and vulnerabilities you are faced with now and in the future.
Written by Kaleigh J. Sporko
Cybersecurity Analyst