Zoom: the Rise of Video Communications in the COVID-19 Age
Over the last seven months, Zoom™ has become an essential business tool relied upon by an increasing number of SMBs and enterprises to keep the wheels turning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Usage of the app has snowballed over the course of 2020, as governments around the world encouraged their citizens to stay away from the office. Zoom quickly became synonymous with both work and social life, charged with ensuring business and personal continuity for both. It has even been described as a ‘fifth emergency service.’
According to a recent study from global data intelligence company Morning Consult titled Working from Home & The Future of Work, the number of adults working exclusively from home has tripled in the months since the start of the COVID pandemic. Additionally, a recent Gartner survey of company leaders indicated that nearly half (47%) of respondents said they intended to allow employees to work remotely full time moving forward.
As a result of this unprecedented surge in remote working, usage of Zoom has increased dramatically. In the company’s second quarter earnings results published in August 2020, Zoom reported that daily meeting participants were up 458% year-over-year. JPMorgan analyst Sterling Auty noted that he expects Zoom's demand to continue even after the pandemic eases, since companies "will want to be prepared to handle disruptions in the future."
In the world of cybersecurity, there is no such thing as ‘too safe.’ Even the most secure apps and software, when used in a less-than-cautious fashion by well-meaning employees, can be (ab)used in ways which allow data to end up in places it shouldn’t be, particularly in the age of bring your own device (BYOD). What if you could add an additional layer of security to apps used for work, such as Zoom, with a seamless experience for employees while improving security and protection of corporate data?
BlackBerry® Dynamics™ is a secure mobility platform for the remote-working age. With BlackBerry Dynamics, business owners can give their employees the freedom to work from any personal device, and use the business-critical applications they need to be productive, while protecting corporate data with industry-leading security and control.
Zoom™ For BlackBerry®: Providing Increased Security for Internal Video Conferences
With businesses both small and large contemplating either a return to the workplace or a watershed shift to perpetual remote working, cloud video conferencing features highly on many organizations’ integration lists. Videoconferencing is a vital business success tool that will continue to build bridges and cut costs (by removing the need to physically travel to meetings and conferences) as the years go by.
Zoom for BlackBerry is the BlackBerry Dynamics-enabled version of Zoom and meets the high standards for security, control, and privacy set by BlackBerry. By using Zoom for BlackBerry Dynamics across the organization, enterprises benefit from increased protection from corporate data leakage and cyber threats. This protection is due to the additional security inherent in the use of a container, and the extra control provided when all meeting participants use the BlackBerry Dynamics version of Zoom.
The importance of security and the ability to protect against data leakage (how data from within the application is used and stored) cannot be overstated, especially in a BYOD scenario. When an employee or staff member uses a piece of standard third-party software, used outside of a security container, that application both creates and receives data that is stored locally. Unless the vendor of that application specifically codes encryption, that data is only encrypted at certain times by the OS – such as when the device is in a locked state.
With the current movement away from company-owned devices such as laptops and cellphone, and the increasingly universal adoption of BYOD, IT helpdesks and security teams can’t depend on 100% of their users’ devices being kept in a locked state.
For example, a mobile phone typically requires a device password to be in a locked state. While an enterprise may request that all their employees set a password on their personal phones, it can’t be forced upon them. And even if every employee did choose to set a password on their personal phone, there is no way to verify that password meets the organization’s requirements on strength and complexity in a BYOD scenario. But if that same employee uses the BlackBerry Dynamics version of an app, all data is protected, and control is maintained by the organization. Security policy is applied at the application level rather than being left to the OS.
Put simply, Zoom for BlackBerry is a highly secure way to hold your internal enterprise meetings. The use of BlackBerry Dynamics enables:
● Embedded Mobile Threat Defense, which provides built-in protection from phishing URLs and malware infected shared files*, plus screenshot compliance policies (iOS®) and prevention (Android™).
● Data Leakage Protection against meeting participants copying from Zoom for BlackBerry and pasting into a personal app. (In ordinary Zoom usage, meeting participants are permitted to take screenshots and copy-paste from the app).
● Files shared in Chat remain secured in the Dynamics file system – Zoom for BlackBerry prevents the download and storage of (potentially confidential) content sent through Zoom outside of the BlackBerry Dynamics container. When saved, the content (for example, an attachment) is saved inside the container, where BlackBerry secures it using the highest level of encryption. This means that malware or a threat actor who gains unauthorized access to the employee’s device cannot access that content.
● IT can remotely wipe the application – and its data if needed.
● The password is at the app level, not the device level (i.e., you can have your device completely unlocked but still only allow access to the work app with an enterprise password).
For busy executives at any company, confidential internal meetings need to be conducted in the safest and most secure fashion. If CISOs and security teams want to make sure that their employee meetings are as secure as possible, they can use Zoom for BlackBerry.
Additional Security Features with Zoom for BlackBerry (AppConfig):
● Control access to camera and photo gallery
● Force Login with SSO
● Disable Facebook® Login
● Disable Google™ Login
● Disable JavaScript® and plugin
● Disable Cloud Recording
● Disable Camera and Photos Gallery
BlackBerry Dynamics: Mobile Support for the BYOD Age
Mobile applications are highly popular in the COVID-19/ work-from-home age, as they allow users to conduct their daily tasks seamlessly on their own personal devices. As users navigate their device and use their apps, the BlackBerry Dynamics platform confirms the integrity of that device, and ensures that data is encrypted in its secure container.
Further enhancing the user experience and security, the BlackBerry Dynamics platform offers the features described below.
Security: BlackBerry Dynamics is built for the most demanding business use-cases and delivers high availability disaster recovery, industry-leading scalability, and security functions including:
● FIPS-validated cryptography
● Common Criteria EAL 4+ certification
● Support for Android SafetyNet Attestation, to protect sensitive data from malicious attacks/access
● Support for Purebred derived credentials to provide more robust storage, usage and management of cryptographic keys
Enterprise reliability: BlackBerry Dynamics apps have no dependence on per-app VPNs or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). BlackBerry Dynamics delivers a highly available architecture, supporting active-active redundancy to enable uptime while controlling cost.
Superior scalability: BlackBerry Dynamics allows organizations to achieve breakthrough scalability of up to 25K devices per server. Whether deployed on premise or in the cloud, BlackBerry can support even the most demanding enterprises.
App analytics: BlackBerry Dynamics includes BlackBerry® Analytics, a cloud-based portal that you can use to view statistics and reports about your organization's BlackBerry Dynamics apps and devices. BlackBerry offers BlackBerry Analytics as part of BlackBerry Dynamics to allow users to track app metrics and analytics (such as specific app feature usage, daily and monthly usage, duration of use and device type usage) for enterprise apps. It also tracks user engagement by feature. Tracked analytics are displayed in our console. BlackBerry customers can even use the BlackBerry Analytics to embed this capability into their own custom apps, so additional analytics can be collected and displayed in our console.
Mobile desktop: The BlackBerry® Dynamics™ Launcher is a single, secure mobile desktop for business. It allows users to easily navigate to and from all their business tools and apps with just a couple of taps – without the hassle of searching for and launching multiple apps to implement business workflows.
Seamless integration with Microsoft® Office 365®: BlackBerry® Enterprise BRIDGE provides a highly secure option for seamlessly using native Microsoft® mobile apps including Microsoft® PowerPoint®, Microsoft® Word, and Microsoft® Excel® from BlackBerry® Dynamics™ apps such as BlackBerry® Work. Data remains containerized, and native Microsoft apps on iOS and Android can be used to work on the same files.
With decades of usage in the most demanding environments, BlackBerry Dynamics is the gold standard for securing mobile enterprise apps. Learn more about BlackBerry Dynamics and Zoom for BlackBerry here: https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/products/blackberry-dynamics
*Requires subscription to BlackBerry® Protect Mobile for BlackBerry® UEM
