Video Conferences: How to ensure a Good level of Privacy

December 2nd, 2017 by ali No comments »

When you start to receive strange emails and notifications from people you do not know, it means that the security of your online meetings is at risk. Let’s see what to do to prevent or address privacy issues during video-conferencing

Data leaking during video conferences is much more frequent than you might expect. Unfortunately, this technology has several flaws that can be utilized by hackers to steal data, from poor or lack of encryption in data transmission over the internet to vulnerabilities connected to CODEC downloading / upgrading and human mistakes (for example, let someone know your password or spy you while inserting your password to log in).

Therefore, it is always important to take care of the security of your meetings.  Here comes the list of the main points to remember before conferencing in.

  • Never disclose your personal information during a meeting

Revealing personal information (like email addresses, phone number, bank accounts, etc) during a meeting could be risky, even if you know the participants. You should always avoid disclosing sensitive information during a call.

  • Check if they are going to record the meeting

It happens quite often that the organizers record the video conferences for several purposes.  If you wish to avoid that your face is going to be shown on YouTube or in other public places, choose video-conferencing tools that allow you to disable recordings.

  • Close all windows before sharing your desktop

The easiest way to hand out your sensitive data to the world is simply to forget some file open on the screen before sharing your desktop to your guests. It is thus vital to close every program, window or pop-up before this risky operation.

  • Beware of data transmission

When data are transmitted through the internet, they are accessible to everyone. Therefore, it is important to utilize solutions that ensure a good data encryption, or, better, to avoid sharing very sensitive documents during your conferences, like, for example, designs of new products or other industrial secrets.

  • Opt for a close-door policy

Ban the access to your company video conferencing software to everybody. Only the attendees to a conference should have access to this software and only for the time that is strictly necessary to attend the conference. It is not a bad idea to reset each password after every meeting and to centralize the process of password creation to someone who is held responsible for it.

Are you interested or concerned about the problems connected with data security and video-conferencing? You are going to find more resources and many interesting posts on this matter on R-HUB`s blog at http://www.rhubcom.com

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The Five Basilar Best practices to include in any policy for Safe Video Conferencing

December 1st, 2017 by ali No comments »

The massive adoption of video conferencing by almost all global organizations in the last few years creates several potential issues in terms of data security. This is the reason why it is important to work out an effective corporate policy for safe video conferences which every member of your organization has to conform with. Let’s have a look at five fundamental best practices that must be always respected in order to prevent data leaks

The more a technology spreads, the higher the possibilities of incidents connected with this technology. Video conferencing does not make exception.  According to a recent survey of Brother International, 60% of organizations exchange critical data during their virtual conferences, of which 50% are financial data and 25% trade secrets. This is bad enough to take the topic of data safety very seriously.

So, what do you need to do in order to ensure a good level of data protection during your conferences? There are five best practices that every organization should adopt:

1 – Use encrypted protocols and software

Encryption protects your data during the transit through the web. Today, almost all providers of video-conferencing solutions utilize encrypted protocols and software; however, you’d better check this important detail before utilizing video conferencing software, and not after.

2- Opt for on-premise server based solutions

Encryption alone is not enough to assure you a good data protection, as data could be stolen at either end of the conference.  Another common issue is that video-conferencing protocols must be allowed through firewalls, which creates potential vulnerabilities. On-premise server based solutions help to solve this second issue, as they are deployed beyond your firewall or the router, so that it is not necessary to open new ports. R-HUB`s TurboMeeting (http://www.rhubcom.com), for example, offers the possibility to reject anybody who tries to access your conference from outside your firewall, besides a strong SSL and proprietary encryption.

3- Create strong passwords

Technology is not enough to be safe, as in many cases data leaks are the consequence of human mistakes. A classical mistake of many workers is to utilize weak passwords, like Johnny1967, as they are easier to remember. A good idea is thus to centralize the process of creation of password, so that there is only one person responsible that handles them out and take cares to work out stronger and stronger passwords that are to be changed periodically.

4 – Create a devoted room for video-conferencing

Passwords are often stolen simply by overlooking someone while inserting his password at the beginning of a video conference.  A good practice is then to utilize a devoted room for video conferencing to which nobody has access and where participants are placed in a way they cannot overhead or overlook each other. In that way, also your equipment is more secure.

5- Switch off any non-necessary device or tool

It is important to disable any device or tool that is not necessary for your conference, like remote camera control, codec auto-updating / downloading, file sharing, as they are often exploited by hacker to break your systems. For similar reasons, it is also important to log off every time when a session or a conference has ended.

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Four great Video Conferencing Solutions with Low Latency and Seamless Live Streaming

November 25th, 2017 by ali No comments »

Nothing is worse than frame overlapping and frame delays, while working remotely in real time with your team. These four video conferencing products have efficiently addressed these annoying issues

Working remotely in real time has become common practice for almost all global organizations today. Unfortunately, it has also become a common experience the annoying problems of frame overlapping and latency, two issues that can potentially disrupt any communication among remote users.

Frame delay / latency simply mean the time that is employed by an image captured by a remote cam to reach your eyes in the form of a frame video. The shorter this span of time, the better and more performing the video conferencing solution that you are utilizing. However, speed is not enough to ensure good performances: it is also necessary a good frame synchronization, so that frames do not get overlapped and their stream is seamless.  Consider that frame overlapping practically disrupts any remote communication and compels video conference participants to fall back to audio conferences or even text chats.

Latency and overlapping depends much on the quality of your connection and your equipment. This is the reason why it is important to opt for video conferencing solutions that take care of these two issues. Among the best, we signal:

R-HUB`s TurboMeeting (http://www.rhubcom.com). An on-premise server based solution that  presently offers the fastest live streaming service for real time collaboration available on the market, with delays that are limited to only 3- 18 seconds  (on average, the delay can be even over 30 seconds) in dependence of  network conditions.  No software to install, as data are streamed to your participants’ devices through their browsers. Smartphone users find this feature very helpful, as they do not need to take up other memory of their devices which is usually full because of the installation of any sort of apps.

Vidyo (http://www.vidyo.com ) . It was the first manufacturer to launch some video conferencing solutions in HD, and it is considered to be the leader of the market. Today, Vidyo offers software based multipoint video conferencing solutions with low latency across multiple different networks in HD 4 K and virtual meeting rooms for small groups. A distinguishing feature of Vidyo software is video optimization, a tool that preserves bandwidth and assures each participant a good user experience.

ezTalks (http://www.ezTalks.com). This company offers a huge range of video conferencing services that cover almost all the possible technologies available, from on-premise server based solutions to cloud and software based solutions. In other word, you can choose the technology that suits your need best or all-in-one solutions. This company was the first to launch free conference rooms where to host up to 100 guests.

Polycom (http://www.polycom.com) is another company that offers multiple video conferencing and real time collaboration solutions through which to browse in order to pick up the best for your specific needs. Its distinguishing feature is a particular system to reduce / block background and environmental noises, one of the most common and annoying causes of distraction during video conferencing.

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The Secrets to enhance your Guests’ Video Conferencing Experience

November 24th, 2017 by ali No comments »

Sixfast- to-learn and easy-to-implement tips that increase a lot your chances to run successfully any video conference

In a world of virtual conferences where the mantra is to engage participants in any way and by all means, the importance of a good video experience for your guests cannot be underestimated.  To understand the importance of video communication, consider that, according to the US Department of Labor,  people retain 65 % of the information delivered through a combination of visual and verbal messages against a poor 10% of the communication delivered through verbal messages only.

Video conferencing is the only medium that allows you to communicate on both ways today. Therefore, assure your guests the best in term of video experience is crucial for whomever, whether he be a speaker, a marketer or a business man. These five tips will help you to make you and your participants to profit as much as possible from video conferences.

First, eliminate environmental noises: nothing is more annoying for your guests than hearing ringing phones, text message typing or other not pertinent noises on the background. Before any meeting, please ask the participants to close, mute or silence their mobiles. Naturally, you have to do the same.

Keep eye-contact with the participants to your video conference. Keeping eye-contact is crucial also in real life meetings. This is quite easy to do, you have simply to set your web cam at eye height and watching it while speaking.

Ban side conversations. People that start chatting to each other are annoying during real conversations, never mind in a virtual meeting. Therefore, you should ban side conversations and ask people to devote their attention only to the speaker. Today, video conferencing tools like R-HUB`s TurboMeeting (http://www.rhubcom.com) enable clients to easily disallow or mute peer-to-peer chats and side conversations.

Dress up for the occasion. Clothes make the man, we say. This is true in both real and virtual life. Therefore, take care of your appearance, exactly as in real meetings. Before the meeting shave yourself, visit your hairdresser and wear appropriate clothes for the occasion. Video won’t save you if you look wild, dirty or not properly dressed up.

Be natural. When speaking, be relaxed and natural as much as possible. Try to make the meeting an enjoyable process for any participant, by smiling, laughing if it is the case, and answering questions. If you feel self-confident, participants will realize it immediately, and they will be relaxed as well. Putting your guests at ease increases a lot your chances to successfully run your video conference.

Take care of the visual noise. Noise is also visual. Ban anything in the background of your screen that can cause distractions, like paintings, posters, furniture, people that come and go. Ideally, you should have a white panel behind and nothing else.

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How to Look great during a Video Conference

November 21st, 2017 by ali No comments »

In a media-dominated society, appearance matters. Let’s discover some useful tips and tricks to look great when attending a video call with the boss

Face-to-face meetings through video conferencing are undoubtedly a more powerful mean of communication than the traditional phone calls. However, most people still prefer the latter. The problem is the subtle discomfort that many users feel when they are placed in front of a camera, even those of one’s own pc. The concerns are mainly about one’s own appearance: how do I look? Does the platform reproduce my image in a proper way?

While it is easy to answer the second question – it is sufficient to choose a good HD Video conferencing product like R-HUB`s TurboMeeting (http://www.rhubcom,com) – the list of check-outs to prepare oneself to a video meeting is not as intuitive and easy-to-imagine as we expect. Paul J.Bailo, author of the book “The Essential Digital Interview Handbook”, observes that “Everyone thinks they know what they’re doing but they’ve never been trained to do it”. Therefore, it is important to learn the basic techniques to look fine on the screen:

Set the lights properly

The point is to avoid shadows under your eyes which make you appear ugly or not natural. In order to reach this result, avoid default lighting that usually comes from overhead. Instead, place two soft light sources behind the web cam (on the right and left sides) and another behind you.

Set the angle of your cam properly

Cam can be tilted of a certain amount of degrees, which obviously affect their field of view. Laptop cams are fixed, and – unfortunately – usually do not capture your face at the right perspective. You have to adjust your cam or your laptop in a way that captures your face and your shoulders and with an alignment of lens at your eyes’ level.The utilization of a small tripod can be helpful.

Set your room and yourself

It is inevitable that the cam captures also a piece of the room or the environment where you are sitting during the conference. The ideal solution is that behind you there is only a white wall, so that your interlocutor does not get distracted and no extra messages  are involuntarily conveyed (for example, the glimpse at an unmade bed in the background  creates  immediately a bad impression).

Similar considerations work for your appearance. Dress formally, as if you were in a real job meeting. Check the temperature in order to avoid sweating, and consider that you should stand up for any reason.

Set your staff or people around you

Distractions during a conference are always bad. This is the reason why you should alert people that are in your house or in the office during your conference to keep out. Similar considerations work for pets. Having your cats that jump on your lap during a meeting with a job interviewer is not only annoying, but also embarrassing and creating a bad impression.

Avoid consulting notes

A video conferencing is slightly different from a real meeting. Consulting notes or reading something or checking for something on the PC means losing immediately the right perspective in front of the cam and creating a sense of noise and confusion. Prepare yourself before the conference, so that you do not need to move or shake your body too much.

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