Zoom Archives - Foster Institute

Two Tips to Make Your Online Meetings Better

Mike Foster — Fri, 15 May 2020 19:50:31 +0000

Everyone is concerned about video conferencing security, and they should be. But when the hardware and software are not working right, safety seems like a distraction.

Use at least two monitors. You can often separate the presentation so that you see slides on one screen and all the participants’ faces on another. When you buy new, seek 4K resolution. Investigate 15-inch portable monitors if you need to move around, or 27-inch screens if portability isn’t necessary.

Second, straining to hear someone’s voice over a poor connection is very distracting. Rather than using your computer’s built-in mic, consider using a suitable USB Microphone. Position the mic close to your mouth. Some people prefer headset mics – especially if they are in a noisy environment. I wear a wireless lapel mic when presenting online keynote speeches and webinars. All of those provide better sound than a laptop’s built-in mic.

Please forward this to everyone you know because, when their video conferences run smoothly, they can pay more attention to security and being mindful of what they say. Stay safe!

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Video Conferencing – Avoid Installing Meeting Programs When Possible

Mike Foster — Fri, 01 May 2020 20:38:53 +0000

CEOs and Executives: Avoid installing video conferencing software on your computer just because some other company tells you to. When you launch video conferencing programs, many of them ask you to install a program or app on your computer or device. What if the program is a virus?

Here is another essential tactic to help protect your remote workers.

There’s a company in Saint Louis that ran into a problem your organization might face too.

Their remote workers must attend many video conference calls, online meetings, webinars, and online training sessions. Their IT Pro doesn’t want to install different programs on his users’ computers if he can avoid it.

As you know, a significant way to improve cybersecurity is to uninstall nonessential software, not to add more programs.

The company’s savvy IT Pro discovered an excellent solution. He found that all of the video conferencing and training tools his team needs can run inside their already-installed browsers. They don’t need to download and install extra software. They have Zoom already, but workers use their browsers for other kinds of meetings. They may not get all the advanced functionality, but they can still participate in the sessions just fine.

Please forward this to your friends so that they know, to improve cybersecurity, avoid installing software or apps whenever possible. Their IT Pro may find that workers can participate in many meetings using their browser only, without needing to increase the attack surface by installing more software.

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Zoom Security – Set Up Two-Step Login

Mike Foster — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 16:50:45 +0000

Protect your Zoom account. If someone discovers your username and password for Zoom, two-step login should block them from logging in as you.

This video walks you through setting up the two step login feature of Zoom.

To help protect your Zoom meetings, watch other videos that cover concerns about using Zoom:

Zoom Security Settings – The Concise Details

Zoom Security Issues – Protect Yourself

Zoom Security – Follow Along to Set Settings

The post Zoom Security – Set Up Two-Step Login appeared first on Foster Institute.

Zoom Security Settings – The Concise Details

Mike Foster — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 16:50:02 +0000

Zoom has many security settings. This is a detailed but concise guide to the settings and how they work.

Update: The information in this video is applicable and useful now. As of April 27, Zoom v5.0 is making security improvements and moving settings. Once Zoom’s settings are stable, we’ll update this video. The video applies to the paid version of Zoom. Login to the Zoom website to set your security settings.

Fasten your seatbelt. There are lots of security settings in Zoom. You must change default settings to help close the doors to hackers.

To access the account settings, sign into the Zoom website, click on your account on the far right of the top bar. You can also select a link to Account Management, under which you can reach the Account Settings.

The free version of Zoom lacks some essential security controls. In the paid version, the best place to start is, in the left-hand column, under ADMIN, select Account Management > Account Settings. By default, you’re already on the meeting tab.

One of the first things you’ll notice is that some settings have a lock symbol next to them. Zoom allows you to configure settings at an account level, group level, and user level. Here, at the account level, if you click the lock icon, that setting will override the group and user settings.

HOST VIDEO: Disable this setting so the host will start meetings with their video off. The host will be able to show their video when they choose.

JOIN BEFORE HOST: Disable and lock the setting that would allow others to join the meeting before the host arrives. Never let anyone start communicating until you join to moderate the conversation.

USE PERSONAL MEETING ID (PMI) WHEN SCHEDULING A MEETING: You may not know it yet, but Zoom sets up a private meeting room for you that runs all the time. Your Personal Meeting ID, abbreviated PMI, is the Zoom address to your room. You want your PMI address to be confidential. Disable this setting.

USE PERSONAL MEETING ID (PMI) WHEN STARTING AN INSTANT MEETING: Disable this too for the same reason.

ONLY AUTHENTICATED USERS CAN JOIN MEETINGS: Enable this to add more protection if you meet with coworkers and other people you know who have Zoom accounts. However, you might choose to disable the setting if you will meet with clients, prospects, or anyone else who might not have Zoom accounts.

REQUIRE A PASSWORD WHEN SCHEDULING MEETINGS. Enable this option for all meeting types. Jot down your PMI password.

Here’s a tip. In case you are ever in a meeting and need to know the password quickly, click on the icon to invite someone, then Zoom displays the meeting ID at the top and the meeting’s password on the lower right corner of your window.

EMBED PASSWORDS IN MEETING LINK FOR ONE-CLICK JOIN: Leaving the setting enabled means the invitation’s link to the meeting includes a built-in password. Invitees are not prompted for and do not need to know the password. That means you can require passwords, and your clientele doesn’t even need to know.

However, embedding the passphrase inside the invitation exposes you to risk. If an unauthorized person obtains the email message, then they, too, can authenticate to your meeting without needing to know the password. If you disable this setting, tell everyone in the meeting the password through some method other than email.

REQUIRE PASSWORD FOR PARTICIPANTS JOINING BY PHONE: Enable this if you want to protect against unauthorized callers.

MUTE PARTICIPANTS ON ENTRY: Enable this, not only for security but to protect the meeting from background noise near a participant.

CHAT: Disable this setting here. If an unauthorized person joins the meeting, you don’t want them to send disturbing chat messages for all to see. If some sessions require chat, do not click the lock.

PRIVATE CHAT: Disable private chat. Protect your participants from unwelcome interruptions from others, perhaps uninvited participants.

PLAY SOUND WHEN PARTICIPANTS JOIN OR LEAVE: Enable this setting to avoid being surprised to find out someone joined, and you didn’t notice. Check the box if you want to require telephone participants to record their names for an announcement when they join.

FILE TRANSFER: Disable and lock this setting. Blocking file transfers helps stop the spread of malware and potentially offensive content.

FEEDBACK TO ZOOM: Disable this feature.

ALLOW HOST TO PUT ATTENDEE ON HOLD: Enable and lock this setting for when you need to have a conversation without everyone listening.

ALWAYS SHOW MEETING CONTROL TOOLBAR: Enable this setting to make your life easier.

SHOW ZOOM WINDOWS DURING SCREEN SHARE: Disable this setting. Unless you are training people to host Zoom, no one needs to see what the host sees.

SCREEN SHARING: Unless you need people to show what’s on their screens to everyone during the meeting, set sharing to host only. If participants can share, there is a risk that someone, perhaps an uninvited participant, could show unwelcome content.

DISABLE DESKTOP/SCREENSHARE FOR USERS: Zoom allows the sharing of an entire monitor or sharing just one program’s window. Enable this setting if you want Zoom only to show the program window. This setting helps protect your participants, and the host, from accidentally sharing sensitive information somewhere on their desktop.

If, however, someone plans to use PowerPoint in presenter mode, disable this feature so that the host can share the whole monitor for displaying the slides.

ANNOTATION: Unless annotation is essential for your meeting, disable it. Turning off annotation prevents an uninvited participant from interrupting the flow of the meeting by placing images all over the screen.

WHITEBOARD: Unless you need the Whiteboard, disable it for the same reason you disable annotation.

REMOTE CONTROL: Unless you need participants to let others remotely control the shared content, disable this feature.

ALLOW REMOVED PARTICIPANTS TO REJOIN: Unless you think you might accidentally remove someone from a meeting, disable this feature to tell Zoom to keep them out.

FAR END CAMERA CONTROL: Disable this setting unless you want someone else to take control of your camera during your meeting.

VIRTUAL BACKGROUND: For security and privacy, tell workers to hide what is in their home office. Your workers can use a green screen backdrop, some attach to the back of chairs, but Zoom can usually differentiate between them and their background either way.

ENABLE IDENTIFYING GUEST PARTICIPANTS: This setting makes it easier for people who belong to your account to identify a potential intruder.

ALLOW USERS TO SELECT ORIGINAL SOUND IN THEIR CLIENT SETTINGS: Enable this feature. It isn’t so much for security as for sanity. If a participant’s voice is garbled, they can select original sound. Then you may be able to hear them.

WAITING ROOM: This is one of the most important and useful security settings in Zoom. Enable and lock this setting so that when participants try to join the meeting, they are held in a waiting room until the host permits them to enter.

Go back up to the top of that very long page. You’ll notice three headings: Meeting, Recording, and Telephone. Click the word Recording to move to the recording tab.

LOCAL RECORDING: Local recording means a participant can save the meeting to their computer. Disable the setting for confidential meetings. Otherwise, an unauthorized person could access that recorded file. A security risk is that the user could store the data in the cloud without a password.

CLOUD RECORDING: Unless you need to have a recording of the meeting, disable cloud recording too. In theory, cloud recordings are more secure since the users don’t have a file they must protect.

You’ll find many additional options. You might want to involve your IT Professional to help you choose the settings.

Scroll back up. Look in the left-hand column under PERSONAL and click on the Profile settings:

PERSONAL MEETING ID: Leave the random number alone. Zoom sets up a private meeting room for you to use anytime, and that PMI is the address to your room. Don’t make it easy for someone to find your PMI address. It is tempting to make your PMI match your phone number, but don’t.

In the left-hand column on the screen, skip down to Personal > Settings. On the Meeting tab, confirm that the host video is off and that Join before the host is disabled too.

Now go back up in the left-hand column to your Personal > Meetings settings, click on the Personal Meeting Room tab at the top. Confirm the settings match what you configured already. Essential settings include a green checkmark for Mute participants upon entry and a green checkmark in front of the Enable waiting room setting.

If you have other users and groups, Zoom suggests you review their account to verify the settings took hold.

When you schedule a meeting: Meeting ID: Generate Automatically. By now, you know to keep your Personal Meeting ID private except for a few people you trust.

Last, you can check for Zoom updates. Open your account settings by clicking on your account icon. Then select the option to check for updates. Zoom makes updates that improve Zoom’s security, but the updates do not help you until you install them.

To help protect your Zoom meetings, watch other videos that cover concerns about using Zoom, configuring the two-step login feature, and a video run-through of settings for paid accounts so you can simply follow along.

Zoom Security – Set Up Two-Step Login

Zoom Security Issues – Protect Yourself

Zoom Security – Follow Along to Set Settings

The post Zoom Security Settings – The Concise Details appeared first on Foster Institute.

Zoom Security Issues – Protect Yourself

Mike Foster — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 23:03:01 +0000

Every business is concerned and should be, about cybersecurity during online meetings. Due to its popularity, Zoom is an attractive target for the bad actors. There are hundreds, maybe more, people working all the time to break Zoom’s security.

To help address the security problems, Zoom now offers a reward for anyone who finds a way to break in. The payoff, for bad actors and researchers, is enormous. A sobering thought is that maybe the attackers already have full control over Zoom. However, they might have complete control over GoToMeeting, Microsoft Teams, Skype, TeamViewer, WebEx, and any other virtual meeting platform. I certainly hope not.

Zoom is Making Improvements

Zoom says they’ve configured the system to avoid sending meetings through China’s servers. Otherwise, the Chinese government might require disclosure of your communications.

If you use Zoom on a Mac, then if a bad actor has your computer, they could take over your camera and microphone. Additionally, Zoom exposed information that could reveal Windows passwords. Zoom says they fixed those problems.

After Consumer Reports raised red flags, Zoom improved its privacy policy and practices. Zoom still has problems. A notable issue is that there is no end-to-end encryption during meetings. Security best practices dictate protection from each participant to every other.

You and Other Companies can Help Protect Meetings

For example, if you permit your users to record the meeting, encourage them to password protect the recordings, especially if they upload them to a cloud storage service. Otherwise, anyone with access to the recording can play it back.

Require passwords and require waiting rooms per new default settings. The goal is to stop intruders from interrupting a Zoom meeting with disruptive or disgusting content.

Configure the meeting so that only the host can share their screen. Then intruders cannot share theirs.

Never use a personal meeting room ID for scheduling meetings. Use the default setting to generate a meeting ID randomly.

Alert users to expect fraudulent email meeting invitations attempting to trick users into typing their Zoom username and password.

Enable two-step login requirements to protect accounts even if a bad actor does discover usernames and passwords.

Or, you could ditch Zoom all together. Options include FaceTime, Signal, Teams, and many others. But who knows which one could get hacked? No matter how secure it is, all it takes to destroy security is for one person on the call, or an attacker with remote access to their computer, to record the conversation using third party screen recording software.

To help protect your Zoom meetings, watch other videos that concisely cover the security settings available in a paid Zoom account, configuring the two-step login feature, and a run-through of paid account settings so you can follow along:

Zoom Security – Set Up Two-Step Login

Zoom Security Settings – The Concise Details

Zoom Security – Follow Along to Set Settings

The post Zoom Security Issues – Protect Yourself appeared first on Foster Institute.

Zoom Security – Follow Along to Set Security Settings

Mike Foster — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 15:11:58 +0000

Update: The information in this video is applicable and useful now. As of April 27, Zoom v5.0 is making security improvements and moving settings. Once Zoom’s settings are stable, we’ll update this video. The video applies to the paid version of Zoom. Login to the Zoom website to set your security settings.

This video is for non-technical people who need to make Zoom more secure today. So, if that’s you, open up your zoom account settings on your screen, and keep this video where you can see it side-by-side. Pause the video when you need to.

Some people say, “Mike, tell us what settings to change to increase our Zoom security.” If that’s you, then you are going to love this video. It walks you through your Zoom account settings so you can follow along.

I know that some of you will want to fine tune the settings more than this. This video is not designed to replace your IT Pro; they know more about your specific system and requirements.

To help protect your Zoom meetings, watch other videos that cover concerns about using Zoom:

Zoom Security – Set Up Two-Step Login

Zoom Security Settings – The Concise Details

Zoom Security Issues – Protect Yourself

The post Zoom Security – Follow Along to Set Security Settings appeared first on Foster Institute.

Make your Zoom Secure

Mike Foster — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 20:55:51 +0000

Tomorrow (Friday) morning, expect a completed guide that is quick for you to implement to lock down your Zoom security. Get started now on a few settings:

To help prevent an attacker logging into your Zoom account, enable two-step login. Once activated, then when you log in, you’ll enter your password along with a separate numerical code. Rather than sending the code as a text message, Zoom uses a more secure approach and requires you to use a passcode generator app. To configure two-step login, go into your account settings. Scroll down until you see the word Admin in the left-hand column, click on Advanced and then click the security option. Scroll down the main window until you see Sign in with Two-Factor Authentication. Enable the option. Sign out of Zoom and sign back in to complete the installation. Follow the prompts to associate your authentication app with Zoom.

When you schedule a meeting, for Meeting ID setting, select Generate Automatically. I’ll explain why soon, know that you need to keep your Personal Meeting ID private except for a few people you trust.

Zoom permits you to choose whether or not to require passwords for your meetings. In most cases, you should require a password. As long as someone gets the meeting notice you send them, they won’t even need the password because the password gets imbedded into the meeting invitation. However, embedding the passphrase inside the invitation exposes you to a risk. If an unauthorized person obtains the invitation, they too can authenticate to your meeting without needing to know the password.

One of the best security features is a tool called Waiting Room. Tomorrow’s tool will show how to set it up quickly. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to receive the links for a powerful experience tomorrow and a concise video on Monday morning.

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