The concept of online security has recently been under strict scrutiny worldwide. With the recent advances in technology over the past few years, there have been breakthroughs in uncharted territories bringing individuals closer together. Technology has facilitated a new world for individuals and corporate entities to stay connected and elevate the communication process within organizations at large. However with the progression of technology and online communication come the implications of online security, or the lack thereof as apparent in many recent cases of security breaches.
Gatecrashing an EU Video Conference: The Comedic Incident with Devastating Security Implications
The Dutch journalist that was able to gatecrash an EU defense video conference this week is a prime example of the critical role of security in online interactions. A meeting of this magnitude requires an optimal level of security, however, this breach in security is an eye-opener to the reality of online security.
Dutch Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld accidentally tweeted a photo prior to the online meeting. This photo contained both the login address of the meeting along with a portion of the pin code that is required to gain access to login and join as a participant. The Dutch journalist Daniel Verlaan of RTL Nieuws took it upon himself to challenge the system and proceeded to guess the pin code. Five of the six digits of the pin code were visible, easing the process of a breach in security.
This incident raises the question of the protocol that is followed in the consequences of an illegal online breach. Reporting such an incident to the authorities is an initial step in the legal process. However it does not act as a long-term solution in helping prevent such an occurrence from happening again in the near future in various organizations.
The ability of the Dutch journalist to gatecrash such a confidential conference has been taken on a humorous note by many individuals worldwide. While the participating officials in the meeting were able to laugh when Verlaan joined the meeting, this does not reduce the seriousness of the offense. Criminal offenses that occur online should be taken at utmost seriousness with the same repercussions had they occurred in person rather than online.
The Journey of Combating the Challenges of Cyber Security
The security of confidential EU meetings is a critical concern, however, the topic of security systems in our modern-day world is far more complex. Humans play an essential role in maintaining privacy throughout online interactions and across communication platforms.
Empowering the User-owned Internet is an initial step in optimizing the level of privacy that individuals and corporate entities are able to maintain online. This process of empowerment stems from the approach under which all accounts are unified using one password. This sense of importance and high value placed ensures that users are inclined to protect this one collective password.
A strategic management system is recommended to encrypt and store all the meeting keys. The storage layers becoming secure is a primary added benefit to such a system. The connections and relations between users interacting with one another are not visible, ensuring the system stays true to user privacy.
Ensuring that users are able to utilize full encryption keys is an essential bridge in striving to achieve full ownership and control of data that is communicated online. No matter the channel whether it be video in the case of the EU Defense Ministers or through email, chats, and calls security is a fundamental concern. Encryption once again is a golden solution to overcoming primary security barriers within database relationships.
Organizations that are going to act in the direction of securing their internal communication through enterprise-enabled suites are going to succeed. Such entities will become trailblazers in the area of ensuring total online security for the first time in our ever-changing online environment.
“Zoombombing” an Online Court Hearing with Porn – Uncharted Breaching Territory
In another incident in August a teenager was accused of a Twitter hack with 30 counts of fraud, having used the internal tools provided by the social media platform to facilitate his actions. The teenager used such tools to access the accounts of various celebrities in a Bitcoin scam. When the online court date for the teen finally took place, the meeting was breached with porn.
The zoom meeting was interrupted to the extent that Hillsborough Judge Christopher C Nash had to call for the hearing to be temporarily held. This did not stop the individuals breaching the meeting from continuing to play music, pornography, and continuously attempting to interrupt the hearing.
The human fault in this teenager’s incident was that the Zoom meeting for the hearing did not require a meeting ID number, thus allowing anyone from the general public to be able to gain access to a very strict and confidential meeting that should have gone uninterrupted. In this incident, the “Zoombombing” as it has been coined, was made possible, as there were no measures put into place to prevent any individual from being able to actually take over the screen. This lack of online awareness is the core element of such a cyber-security issue.
A Glance at the Future of Cyber Security – An Uphill Challenge
Upon analyzing these cases of security breaches and various others that have recently occurred, there is a common factor that is noticed and is seen throughout all of them. The core architecture that is being used by various companies is Web 2.0 otherwise known as the client-server model. The potential that can be unlocked by making the switch to Web 3.0 architecture is immeasurable. If utilized in the market on a wide and vast scale, there will surely be an outstanding effect on the rate of user privacy online, unlike anything the industry has ever seen before.
