Video Conferencing
A Video Conferencing Platform is a technology system that facilitates real-time, interactive audio and video communication between two or more participants over the internet. These platforms enable remote collaboration, virtual meetings, webinars, and large-scale digital events, serving as a critical component of modern distributed work and education.
The core function is to replicate the experience of an in-person meeting by transmitting synchronous streams of video, voice, and data (like screen sharing) while managing the network and hardware requirements for a smooth interaction.
Key functional capabilities of these platforms include:
Real-Time Audio and Video: High-definition transmission of voice and participant video feeds, often with controls for muting, background noise suppression, and optimization for varying bandwidth conditions.
Screen and Content Sharing: Allowing participants to share their entire desktop, specific application windows, or presentations, often with annotation tools for collaborative marking.
Recording and Transcription: Capability to capture the meeting session (audio, video, and shared content) for later review, often integrated with automated transcription services.
Meeting Management and Scheduling: Tools for setting up meeting times, sending invitations, managing participant lists, and enforcing entry controls (like virtual waiting rooms).
Integrated Collaboration Tools: Features such as instant text chat, polling, Q&A modules, and virtual whiteboards to enhance interaction during the live session.
Security Controls: Options for password settings, end-to-end encryption, and locking meetings to prevent unauthorized access.
Cybersecurity Concerns for SaaS Video Conferencing Platforms
When Video Conferencing Platforms are delivered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, they introduce significant cybersecurity risks. These platforms are attractive targets because they are conduits for real-time strategic discussions and often exchange confidential data, yet they are designed for easy, broad external access.
1. Exposure of Confidential and Strategic Information
The primary risk is the transmission of high-value corporate secrets, whether live or recorded.
Eavesdropping on Strategic Discussions: Meetings often cover highly confidential topics, including product development, merger and acquisition details, financial planning, and client negotiations. If the platform's transmission is compromised, an attacker gains immediate access to this sensitive, time-critical strategic information.
Accidental Data Exposure: Screen sharing poses a significant risk. Users may inadvertently share confidential data (e.g., passwords in a notes app, unreleased spreadsheets, or private emails) that is visible on their screens during the conference, leading to rapid, untraceable data leakage.
Mismanaged Recordings: Meeting recordings often capture the complete flow of confidential discussions and are stored on the vendor's cloud infrastructure. If access controls or retention policies are lax, these recordings can become long-term, high-value targets for data theft.
2. Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Unauthorized Access
The design requirement for easy external access creates vulnerabilities in authentication and control.
"Zoombombing" and Unauthorized Entry: Weak meeting controls (e.g., lack of mandatory passwords or failure to use waiting rooms) can allow unauthorized participants to join live sessions, leading to eavesdropping, disruption, or the theft of information displayed during the screen share.
Credential Theft and Account Takeover (ATO): A successful ATO of an employee's video conferencing account allows the attacker to impersonate the user to schedule malicious meetings, distribute malicious links to internal participants, or silently join confidential internal sessions.
Inadequate Guest Controls: Guests and external participants may be granted excessive default privileges (e.g., ability to chat privately, rename themselves, or even share content), increasing the risk of spam, malicious content injection, or social engineering.
3. Third-Party and Application Vulnerabilities
The software itself and its integrated components can serve as attack vectors.
Vulnerabilities in Client Software: The software client or browser plugins used by employees to join the meeting can contain coding flaws (vulnerabilities) that, if exploited, can allow an attacker to gain access to the user's local machine, not just the meeting itself.
Compromise of Integrated Services: Video conferencing platforms integrate with calendars, chat applications, and file-sharing services. A security flaw in an integrated Application Programming Interface (API) can allow an attacker to pivot from the conferencing platform to steal user authentication tokens or access sensitive data in connected apps.
Encryption Weakness: Despite claims of encryption, the level of encryption can vary. If end-to-end encryption is not implemented correctly or enforced, the vendor itself or an intermediate party could potentially access the audio and video streams.
ThreatNG, as an External Attack Surface Management (EASM) and Digital Risk Protection (DRP) platform, is exceptionally critical for securing SaaS Video Conferencing Platforms. These platforms are high-value targets because they serve as conduits for real-time strategic discussions and the exchange of confidential data. ThreatNG’s unique outside-in perspective identifies the specific external vulnerabilities, weak access points, and exposed data that attackers would use to eavesdrop on confidential meetings or compromise user accounts.
ThreatNG Modules and Video Conferencing Security Mitigation
External Discovery and Continuous Monitoring
These modules are essential for identifying the exposure of meeting portals and guest access points, directly mitigating the risks of Shadow IT and accidental Configuration Errors.
External Discovery systematically maps and inventories the entire public-facing footprint, including the organization's customized login portals and guest meeting domains.
Continuous Monitoring maintains a persistent, automated watch over these assets.
Example of ThreatNG Helping: A sales department sets up an unapproved, third-party video service subdomain (
sales-vc.company.com) for client demos (Shadow IT). External Discovery finds this unsanctioned asset. Continuous Monitoring then flags the asset when it detects that the service’s meeting lobby page is running an outdated web component, preventing an attacker from exploiting a known vulnerability to gain information about active meetings.
External Assessment (Cloud and SaaS Exposure Investigation Modules)
This module provides a detailed, risk-scored analysis of external vulnerabilities, which is vital for mitigating Third-Party and Application Vulnerabilities and Inadequate Guest Controls.
Highlight and Detailed Examples—Cloud and SaaS Exposure Investigation Module: This module assesses risks across the video conferencing ecosystem.
Cloud Capability: Externally discovering cloud environments and uncovering exposed open cloud buckets. Example: ThreatNG assesses a specific cloud storage bucket used to archive video meeting recordings. The assessment reveals that the bucket’s policy allows public access due to a configuration oversight. ThreatNG identifies this vulnerability and assigns a high Exposure Score, directly mitigating the risk of an attacker downloading the organization's entire archive of confidential strategic meeting recordings.
SaaS Identification Capability (SaaSqwatch): Discovers and uncovers SaaS applications integrated with or related to the video conferencing environment. Example: ThreatNG assesses a third-party webinar registration service (discovered by SaSqwatch) that integrates with the leading video platform. The assessment reveals that the service’s external login portal is vulnerable to credential stuffing attacks. ThreatNG quantifies the Exposure Score and mitigates Third-Party Risk by requiring the immediate securing of that application, preventing an attacker from obtaining login credentials that could be used to join internal meetings.
Investigation Modules
These modules delve into external threat intelligence to provide context on active and imminent risks, which are crucial for combating Credential Theft and Account Takeover (ATO).
Dark Web Investigation: Monitors for compromised credentials. Example: The module discovers a list of stolen credentials for sale that explicitly identifies employees' emails and passwords, confirming a severe IAM Flaw. This intelligence enables the organization to immediately force password resets and mandatory strong Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for affected employees, preventing a potential Account Takeover that an attacker could use to impersonate an employee and join confidential meetings.
Sensitive Code Exposure Investigation: Scans public code repositories for accidentally leaked secrets. Example: ThreatNG discovers an old repository containing a configuration file with the unencrypted API Key or Service Account Credential used by the video conferencing platform to integrate with the corporate calendar system. This finding directly prevents the compromise of an Integrated Service by allowing the organization to revoke the key immediately, thereby preventing an attacker from obtaining proprietary meeting agendas and participant lists.
Intelligence Repositories
The Intelligence Repositories centralize threat data from various sources (dark web, vulnerabilities, exploits) to provide crucial context and priority for video platform security findings.
Example: When the External Assessment identifies a client software version running on an external laptop that is known to have a remote code execution vulnerability, the Intelligence Repositories instantly correlate this vulnerability with active threat actor discussions. This context ensures that the security team issues an immediate update mandate, preventing an attacker from exploiting the flaw to pivot from a compromised meeting into a user's local machine.
Cooperation with Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG’s external intelligence is designed to integrate with a company’s existing security solutions to automate responses and enforcement, maximizing protection of live communication streams.
Cooperation with Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Platforms: ThreatNG detects a high-severity alert indicating an exposed, high-privilege Service Account Credential (discovered by the Sensitive Code Exposure module) used for platform administration. ThreatNG sends the credential ID, affected system, and severity rating to the SOAR platform. The SOAR platform automatically initiates a playbook to revoke the exposed credential in the internal vault. It simultaneously triggers an automated audit of the video platform's access logs to detect any unauthorized logins associated with that key, neutralizing the threat immediately.
Cooperation with Identity and Access Management (IAM) Systems: ThreatNG's Dark Web Investigation discovers 50 compromised login credentials belonging to active employees. ThreatNG pushes this list of compromised accounts to the organization's central IAM system. The IAM system then automatically revokes all active session tokens for those users and forces a password reset on their next login attempt, directly preventing potential Account Takeover of the video conferencing service.
