HOW CAN I MAKE GOOGLE MEET MORE SECURE?
Video conferencing is now an essential part of how we connect & communicate with the outside world, whether its on a professional or personal level.
With that, learning how to secure virtual meetings is a prerequisite in light of the security concerns shrouding online conferencing tools and cyber criminals preying on any security gaps there.
While Google Meet is one of the most secure video conferencing tools out there, the following tips will show you how to make your Google Meets more secure from your end:
1. KEEP MEETING CRASHERS AWAY
There’s nothing worse than having a stranger intrude on your meetings.
Add to that a stranger with ‘malicious intent’ and you get a complete Data Leakage (or DLP) incident out of nowhere.
Thankfully, Google uses exceptional multi-layered security to make it impossible for intruders to crack your video meeting IDs programmatically.
HOWEVER, you should do your part too.
Avoid accidentally disclosing meeting links to external parties. This could easily happen when sharing a screenshot of your meeting room with the meeting link is visible in the browser, for example.
It’s common practice nowadays for companies to share such screenshots on platforms like LinkedIn to show how they stay in touch with their employees. While it may be good for PR purposes, it’s just not the best security practice there.
Finally, creating specific rooms for each individual meeting is also a great idea to make sure you have the right participants added to the right rooms.
2. AUDIT GOOGLE MEET ACTIVITY
If you’re a Google Workspace Admin, then understanding your company’s Google Meet activity can be a great way to get an overall sense of your users’ virtual operations, as well as stay on top of any related insider threats.
Google Workspace security tools like GAT+ allow you to conduct such extensive Google Meet Audits (with 30 days graph summaries) showing the number of meetings – per day – for a month.
3. ENSURE ‘THE PHYSICAL SECURITY’ OF YOUR MEETS
That one is particularly important, especially when data protection is warranted.
Consider this scenario:
Jenna works in the healthcare sector. Yesterday she had a video Meet with her boss in her backyard where she spoke about how 3 employees at X supermarket all contracted Covid-19, even naming a few.
Her neighbour, Henry, overhears that while doing some gardening. Shocked, he rings his mother up to tell her all about what he heard.
His mother anxiously calls her friend Susan who lives right by that supermarket to warn her — and the news start travelling faster than the speed of light from there.
See what happened?
Too often confidential data may be discussed in virtual meetings. You can secure every aspect of your Google Meet conversations from a ‘technical perspective’, however, controlling the physical security of participants’ surroundings is super important too.
4. SECURE RESOURCES SHARED IN GOOGLE MEET
Removing sensitive Calendar resources from cancelled or lapsed meetings is also very important to securing your collaboration in Google Meet.
This is also crucial for ensuring Data privacy compliance for Google Meet.
If management, for example, asks you to clear a room of all scheduled meetings for the next week, you can use it to also remove all Calendar resources booked with those associated meetings.
SEE: How to remove Calendar resources from an event with GAT+
5. CONTROL WHICH PARTICIPANTS CAN PRESENT THEIR SCREENS
Especially for larger Google Meets, you’d always want to control which participants can share their screens.
This helps you minimize the chances for unexpected surprises – including accidental sharing of sensitive information that may be on someone’s screen.
6. DON’T RECORD MEETS, UNLESS NECESSARY
Meet’s record feature may be tempting to use for longer meetings to catch up on some points later on instead of taking minutes.
However, this feature can also be a security hazard when abused.
Google Workspace admins should only turn on recording for very specific accounts and ALWAYS be aware of which meetings are being recorded and ensure that such recordings are not shared externally.
Well, that’s it from us today. We hope you continue to connected securely with Google Meet.
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