The world is in distress due to the COVID-19 pandemic that’s continuing to ravage not only the global population but the economy as well.
The number of infected is rising exponentially by the day. In fact, it just went above the 1-million mark of infections, while fatalities are at a staggering 55,000.
Never before has the world since a health crisis of this magnitude since the 1918 Spanish Flu.
But it’s all said and done, and there’s nothing we can do but to accept the reality, do our best to contain and stop its spread, and in the process, adapt so that we may somehow live a normal life amidst the abnormality the world is facing.
In line with this, companies around the globe adhere to a radical changing of operations — work at home.
Sounds good, eh? Knowing that it’s entirely possible with today’s online world and abundance of ways and means to communicate and get work done.
Unfortunately, there are still opportunists who prey on the situation and use it to carry on with their criminal activities.
One such example is the rising incidents of teleconference hacking, specifically on the video conference platform, Zoom.
Most work-at-home employees are now turning their heads to Zoom when it comes to meetings, events, and even work seminars and training sessions.
Unfortunately, the FBI said in a recent statement that there’s a growing number of hackers who have taken advantage of Zoom’s popularity these days. These hackers who are undermining one’s cybersecurity interrupts conferences with aggressive language and indecent images.
One specific example of this was when two schools based in Massachusetts reported to the FBI Boston Division in late March that their online classroom was compromised by pranksters.
The hacker was said to have infiltrated their online classroom and interrupted the discussion with foul language. The teacher’s home address was then broadcasted.
The intent of the teleconference hijacking wasn’t clear, but the school, as well as the FBI, are determined that it was merely a prank. Nonetheless, it was a dangerous one and could undermine one’s safety if the information went to the wrong hands.
There was also a reported incident when a person hacked onto the Zoom teleconference and showed his swastika tattoo as students were listening to a virtual discussion.
These are just some of the many teleconference hijacking incidents that is growing in number across the U.S.
This shows that it isn’t just the menacing coronavirus pandemic that’s affecting people’s lifestyles, but also the cybersecurity of everyone is starting to get compromised as well.
So, how to prevent situations like these? Here’s how:
Lock your session.
Zoom has a feature that lets you lock your Zoom meeting. This can be done when all of the participants have joined the chat room.
Go to the Lock Meeting button on top and click that. Doing this locks your current chat room from other people who might want to join in, making it inaccessible to anyone who isn’t invited to the conference.
Setup screen sharing.
There’s a new feature in Zoom which lets you change the settings of screen sharing and make it exclusive for the host. Choose the Host Only setting so that the host will be the only one to share their screen and not anyone else. However, this feature is just available in Education accounts.
Get a registration list.
Getting a registration list means that you create a list where all the attendees’ names and email addresses of your teleconference session can be found. This way, you’ll know who is in so you can trace if ever someone compromises the session.
Exclusive to authenticated users.
Make sure that the attendees use their own personal account and not a dummy one. They should be authenticated and verified as well. If they don’t have one, then don’t allow them entry into the teleconference.
Passwords.
Never make your teleconference public. It’s best if you create and set up a password on it so only people you know can join the online meeting.
Don’t share links publicly.
Never post the teleconference link in social media, especially on Facebook and Twitter, as there are a lot of people who aren’t invited to join and sabotage the meeting. Instead, send the link directly to them through personal or direct messages.
What do you think of this latest cybersecurity threat called teleconference hijacking? Do you think this will persist throughout the whole global lockdown period? Or will the authorities put these troublemakers to justice soon? Share out your thoughts in the comment section below.
