Online meetings – the large walls of books or prefabricated backgrounds of the respective video conferencing service.
Yes, it’s getting hard to see. However, the pandemic situation that has now prevailed for more than a year has shown that distributed working is possible in many professions. One fundamentally important aspect of this is communication. Video conferencing services have now become the central means of communication for distributed working and essential for the day-to-day work of many companies. However, holding meetings from any location requires the right equipment, suitable tools and good security.

Equipment & tools: the right setup for professional collaboration
In order to be able to work productively, you first need the necessary technical equipment. The basic equipment is therefore important, such as a laptop with a good-quality camera. Ideally, you should also have a headset or similar to ensure a reasonable voice quality. Things like a mouse, docking station and additional screens are not essential for making calls, but they are very useful for a professional working method.

Although high-quality equipment is very important, it is not the sole panacea. Without an engine, even the most beautiful car could not drive. Because it doesn’t just need a good body, there has to be something “under the hood” too. This means that the best technical equipment is useless if there is no suitable conference platform/software available or if you cannot dial into conferences.

There are many different video conferencing services. Their range of functions usually goes far beyond pure audio and video transmission. In addition to classic online meetings, they often also include chat and telephony functions and the option to exchange data. For many companies, these tools are not just “nice to have”, but important functionalities for professional work. Certain applications can also be optimally connected to other tools already used in the company via interfaces. Other programs such as Sharepoint or Skype for Business/Microsoft Teams can often be integrated.

However, as with any type of data exchange, the increasing complexity and extended functions of the tools are accompanied by risks for information security.

Video conferencing security: extremely important, but often underestimated
An important but often underestimated factor in video conferencing is security. To return to the car metaphor, a car doesn’t just have to look good or have a sporty engine, it also needs a security system that is well adapted to its requirements.

Of course, nobody wants the confidential information exchanged in meetings to be overheard or read by unauthorized third parties. However, as already mentioned, these modern systems are not only used for communication, but also for the joint creation and editing of documents, among other things. When using such services, there are risks to the confidentiality, availability and integrity of the transmitted data.

The publication of a minimum standard for secure video conferencing by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) shows that the topic is extremely relevant and present: https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/BSI/Cyber-Sicherheit/Themen/Kompendium-Videokonferenzsysteme.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2. Companies should thus be better protected against risks. The reason for the publication of the compendium is the significant increase in the use of video conferencing solutions in administration and business as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The publication describes the different types of video conferencing systems and outlines the specific risk situation. The compendium also formulates comprehensive security requirements that enable the secure use of video conferencing services. It helps users and operators to securely design the entire life cycle of internal organizational video conferencing systems, from planning, procurement and operation to emergency preparedness and decommissioning.

Act proactively instead of reactively
Many users have been put into the situation of managing their day-to-day work via conferencing systems virtually “overnight”. The issue of risk assessment in particular has often been treated as a secondary consideration, as the rapid restoration of working capacity was the top priority for many companies. However, there is an urgent need to take a more holistic approach here: Economic success through the skillful use of conferencing solutions and sustainable continued existence of the company through safe working.