Evaluating the Security of Collaboration Solutions
Security is the single most important issue to consider when evaluating an online collaboration solution. This is especially true for government agencies and organizations that deal with intellectual property or sensitive transactions. Before choosing any system, you’d be wise to make sure it fully addresses the security issues described in the questions below. Otherwise, your sensitive communications and data may be exposed to serious risk.
- Are all meeting components encrypted with AES?
- Is any data (including text, files, audio and video) decrypted at any point when it is transmitted from one computer to another?
- How are users authenticated (verified to be who they say they are) when they join a meeting?
- Does the system's security architecture include more than just SSL (Secure Socket Layer) data protection—before, during, and after transmission?
- How are users' passwords protected?
- What kind of protection does the system’s instant messaging feature provide?
Are all meeting components encrypted with AES?
Why this matters:
AES, the Advanced Encryption Standard, is the government standard for security. If all your online meeting data—audio, video, instant messages, whiteboards, and workspace files—is not encrypted with AES, it is vulnerable to unauthorized access, loss, and theft.
How VIA3 stacks up:
VIA3® provides end-to-end protection of all online meeting components—files, data, audio, video, and instant messaging—using AES encryption.
Is any data (including text, files, audio and video) decrypted at any point when it is transmitted from one computer to another?
Why this matters:
To be fully protected, your data must not be decrypted until it reaches your intended recipient. Some collaboration systems decrypt data at various points before this, creating a security gap.
How VIA3 stacks up:
With VIA3, data is never stored in clear text. Therefore, files, video, audio, and instant messaging sessions are never vulnerable to intrusion at any time: not during transmission, on VIACK® servers,
or in our data center.
How are users authenticated (verified to be who they say they are) when they join a meeting?
Why this matters:
Some systems require telephone conference calls for the audio portion of online meetings. This can compromise the security of your communications, because conference calls initiated by toll-free numbers are vulnerable to unauthorized access through publicly-available passcodes.
How VIA3 stacks up:
VIA3 authenticates users with voice and video—you can both see and hear your meeting attendees in order to verify their identities.
Does the system's security architecture include more than just SSL (Secure Socket Layer) data protection—before, during, and after transmission?
Why this matters:
Most Web meeting solutions are not designed to incorporate the rigorous protection only AES can provide. Because adding AES as an afterthought can severely degrade system performance, these solutions limit you to the inadequate protection of SSL.
How VIA3 stacks up:
AES security is integral to the design of VIA3, so the system does not have the performance problems or security gaps caused by add-on safeguards. To offer you a similar class of performance-independent AES protection, other systems would have to be re-engineered from the ground up.
How are users’ passwords protected?
Why this matters:
Insufficient password security leaves your communications and data open to both external and internal intrusion. For example, some systems transmit passwords in unencrypted, "human readable" clear text format—this enables intruders to easily obtain them by hacking into the connection. Similarly, if passwords are stored in clear text, anyone who can get into your database (such as network administrators or a disgruntled employee) can access passwords and view, alter, or steal sensitive information.
How VIA3 stacks up:
With VIA3’s secure, certificate-based authentication system, no plain text is ever sent across the Internet. And user passwords are completely private: they are not stored on VIACK servers in any form.
What kind of protection does the system’s instant messaging feature provide?
Why this matters:
Instant messaging (IM) is so convenient that many people have come to rely on it at work, without considering the security implications. That fact is that most standalone IM products are completely unprotected and therefore put your confidential information in serious jeopardy.
Some Web meeting solutions include an IM feature and others don’t. Some integrate with popular consumer IM systems, which can pose a huge security risk.
The bottom line: having no IM at all is better than using a consumer-oriented feature designed for casual conversation and recipe exchange, not for handling sensitive business information.
If you want IM—and it’s very useful to have—choose a business-class solution in which it is fully integrated with online meeting functionality, and in which all instant messages are AES encrypted from end to end.
How VIA3 stacks up:
Unlike other online meeting systems, VIA3 provides integrated, AES encrypted instant messaging. This makes your instant messages completely private and secure—only your intended recipient can ever see them in intelligible form.
