Millions of users rely on videoconferencing to do their jobs remotely, and in the modern environment of work-from-home, the number of users who rely on this technology to stay connected with their teams will only grow. Videoconferencing has become (and will become even more of) an essential part of business continuity for effective communication, collaboration, and productivity. However, most video conferencing solutions are provided by third party vendors, and run on vendor-owned infrastructure, in a way that allows those vendors to observe, record, store, exploit, and even potentially leak an organization’s media streams and other private data.
For organizations concerned about the privacy of their communications and the safety and security of their staff, this creates an unacceptable level of risk. In addition to these administrative risks, most modern videoconferencing solutions introduce technological risks as well. These solutions rely on a technology called “Web Real-Time Communications” (WebRTC) to deliver their service. But WebRTC is not designed to be secure; it’s designed to be convenient. In order to get around firewalls and other infrastructure-specific limitations, WebRTC makes use of “Session Traversal Utilities for NAT” (STUN) and “Traversal Using Relay NAT” (TURN) services to facilitate their operation. And they do facilitate operation…at the cost of revealing information about individual users and their network locations that those users (or their organization) might not want revealed. What’s more, every user connects to the same videoconferencing server, which allows a third party observer to correlate which users are talking to whom, and when, and which organizations they are a part of.
Because current videoconferencing solutions do not address this risk landscape in a way that allows an organization to visualize, manage, and mitigate the dangers inherent in the technology, in order to protect their people and their intellectual property, it becomes imperative to change the organization’s whole approach to videoconference-based collaboration.
Speakeasy: secure, anonymous, untraceable video teleconferencing, from Dexter Edward
Since 2015, Dexter Edward has been the premier provider for secure, traceless, and anonymous online communications. With the addition of the Speakeasy product, Dexter Edward applies this track record for discreet communications to the suddenly-burgeoning area of videoconferencing for remote collaboration.
Speakeasy leverages Fognigma’s revolutionary Portal Proxy and ZeroProfile capabilities in order to provide secure conference rooms for collaboration, as well as individual, unique, single-use proxy access points for each participant. With Speakeasy, conferences are completely undiscoverable by any third party, and are protected within a Fognigma Network using ZeroProfile smart firewalls. Each participant receives a unique network path to use to access the conference, ensuring that no two users can be correlated with one another or with the videoconference server or service.
A third-party observer cannot even tell that the participant is part of a videoconference at all. And because each network path is unique and separate, there are no WebRTC STUN/TURN data leaks to worry about. Even better, Speakeasy can be completely automated, creating and destroying conference rooms and access points as needed, so your users always have what they need, when they need it, without increasing administrative overhead.
Dexter Edward’s Speakeasy capability provides these important features:
- Compatibility With Any Device: Users can virtually communicate face-to-face using any device running any major operating system; no special hardware or software is required.
- Chat and Screen Share: To maximize communication and collaboration in virtual meetings, Fognigma’s video conferencing solution has chat and screen share capabilities.
- Global Accessibility: No matter where in the world your team members are located, they can reach their Speakeasy conferences with the click of a button, and you can even tailor their access points to be geographically near to the participants’ worksites, so that they do not draw undue attention.
- You own the infrastructure: Video conferences run on servers your organization owns, meaning no one else has access to see your private company information.
- Completely Private and Invisible: Conferences exist only when you need them, and their existence (as well as any information about who is accessing them, and when) is completely undetectable from outside your organization. Even people within your organization will only be aware of conferences they have been invited to participate in. So your communications are protected from external threats as well as the most dangerous risk of all: the insider
- AES-256 Encryption: Fognigma protects all communications within the system with AES-256 encryption. Every session, every conference, and every interaction is uniquely keyed, every time. When a conference is completed, the system destroys it, as well as all of the access points to it, completely, which leaves no forensic footprint for an adversary to attempt to investigate.
How It Works
Using the Fognigma console you create and issue a unique access point for the Speakeasy conference server to every user in your organization who is authorized to create Speakeasy conferences. Users use that URL to access the Speakeasy console whenever they need to create a room for collaboration. To create a room, the user simply clicks “Reserve Conference” and selects the number of participants who will be making use of the room. The Speakeasy server then builds the conference room and the unique access points for each participant. The user then provides those access point URLs to the participants, who click on them to join the conference from any network-connected device with a web browser. Once the conference is complete, the user who reserved it returns to the Speakeasy console and clicks “Terminate”. The server then deletes the conference room and all of the individual access points to that room, so even if an adversary managed to discover one of those unique URLs, he or she would not be able to use it to trace back to any of the participants, the server, or your organization.
Videoconferencing and remote collaboration are more important than they have ever been, and they are here to stay. Your organization needs a solution that protects its intellectual property, its people, and its budget. Speakeasy, from Dexter Edward, is your solution for the rapidly-evolving remote-collaboration environment.
Security is a lot more than having password-protected online security. Secure networks provide confidentiality, zero-trust solutions between service providers, and uninterrupted business operations. This is a valuable thing to have in today’s virtual landscape. Many would be surprised how often a business or big company gets hacked. When confidential information or data is accessed, there are a ton of negative things that can happen to an entire infrastructure.
Many do not want just firewalls or antivirus software; most will need more than that. They can protect users on the surface. Fognigma can help set up extra network security services like regular audits, layered defenses, online updates, and more solutions. With these extra layers of cyber security, one can feel confident that a business will be well protected.
Another great step in ensuring a network is secure is identifying unknown devices within a provider or system. One would be surprised how often customers need to learn what goes on within their network. These types of users can access, pose a significant risk, and even be a backdoor for hackers to access the information through a checkpoint. So, make sure regular checkups are happening to ensure a zero-trust network is secure.
Another thing one can look out for is vulnerabilities. Any sort of new threats can creep into a zero-trust network through these vulnerabilities, and it is crucial to get rid of them so that there are not any repercussions. Sometimes, these threats are beyond control, which can be worrisome. That is why it is a good idea to trust the professionals at Fognigma to monitor these vulnerabilities through the network traffic.
One will want to have real-time monitoring so that one can detect breaches early on before they cause any damage. Without help from people like us, a business’s data and end users are open to attack. Make sure to discuss how to protect service and technology before it is too late.
A password-protected internet sometimes cuts it. One will want to use things like WPA or WPA2 to enhance a network’s encryption for better overall zero-trust network security solutions. Also, a good networking tip is avoiding default network names or passwords. There are so many different people in the world who keep their passwords the same and simple. This is a sure way for hackers to get personal information and would require more in-depth network security solutions.
The last thing most people want to do is have a person hack a firm’s data primarily because a password is too easy to guess. People often use different characters in their passwords as well as punctuation marks and numbers, so it takes more work to get secure access.
There are always the common phishing emails or links that tend to be sent to employees company-wide. It is important to prepare the staff not to click strange links or open attachments from unknown senders. This is a sure way to have phishing attempts compromise an entire zero-trust network.
Phishing attacks like this are one of the most common methods hackers use to gain access to a business and users’ data.
Data breaches can happen any day, and the best thing to do is ensure a company knows data loss prevention strategies. If cyber security attacks are not taken seriously, most can face external threats affecting email security, access to sensitive information, and potentially an entire zero-trust network infrastructure.
Fognigma is one of the best zero-trust solution providers and is more than knowledgeable on how to attack surfaces and malicious activity. Sensitive data will stay confidential and away from data theft or other threats. Customers sometimes need help figuring out what to do when faced with brute-force attacks, but Fognigma does.
