While the global pandemic remains to affect our lives vigorously, the impact of virtual events has majorly taken a positive toll on the planner’s way of organising and strategizing events. However, maintaining digital safety to protect viable information of the clients and customers is something that event organisers must bear in mind.
Even after being digitally sophisticated, any unpredictable event could occur and disrupt the entire proceedings of your event. To keep your attendees and stakeholder’s information private, it is crucial to amalgamate the right technology. Regardless of how fantastic your event ideas and executions maybe, if you cannot keep up with the challenges in response to information security, you may lose some of your potential clients.
Indeed, traditional events were three times more likely to be secure. We had live guards and tight security alongside you being physically present to keep an eye on your private belongings. After the breakout of covid-19, virtual and hybrid events have uniquely presented their ability to conquer the double that we used to get from live events. With considerably high demand for advanced and secured technology, tech enthusiasts have been painstakingly developing security tools that are easy to utilise and set aside any possible hindrance. In this particular case, we will cover some best tips and ideas to help maintain your virtual event safety now and in the future.
What are the threats faced by virtual events?
The internet is bombarded with serious cybercrimes which can extensively disrupt your entire business operations. With the unexpected shift of events, many businesses and government agencies continue to exploit their meetings online. But with fake entities spread at every corner, it might get challenging to reveal who the person is behind the masks.
In many cases of zoom-bombing, show; people have been facing embarrassment or been trolled and made practical jokes about their private information. This behaviour has been recorded the most after we encountered the sudden surge for the virtual events. Beyond any doubt, virtual events have made life simpler. Today you can easily exchange essential information such as property details, personally identifiable data, and confidential documents. But with this, the count of hackers has also increased who can likely steal or misuse your private data.
Why is end-to-end encryption necessary?
Virtual events are an online space wherein attendees connect and network with global audiences from their home comforts. Hence, they are most likely to experience inadequate security. For instance, many people keep the same login id and password for their wireless networking security keys or routers. At the same time, others may join via an unsecured wireless hotspot. Both instances can be destructive. Furthermore, this can make your event experience vulnerable.
The overwhelming situation sometimes can invite risks to eavesdrop. Hence, if you consider hosting a meeting for your company employees, ensure to mitigate all the risks by allowing attendees to join via an enterprise-grade VPN. Besides that, if the event also comprises some unknown guests, our best bet is to choose a platform provider that offers end-to-end security & encryption to make your journey secure and seamless.
Now, there are chances that the eavesdroppers may still hack the access of your networking traffic, but because of end-to-end encryption, they won’t be able to gather the transmitted data. However, to boost your meeting efficiency while also protecting your meeting from phishing scams, having a multi-factor verification is a must! The following tool helps in verifying each attendees login alongside weighing secondary authentication and passwords. To prevent any unfortunate scenario from occurring, generate an instant SMS code for the registrants who signed up for your event. This can be the best suitable way to deal with eavesdroppers and man-in-the-middle attacks.
Lastly, keep changing the meeting ID to conduct a meeting online to avoid any personal information leak. Casual encounters do not require any strong security measures so, use the security services only if you are going to be strictly internal.
Keep data safely in the cloud.
We all have come across data protection challenges once in our lives. Hence, you understand the potential risks of failures in any networking infrastructure. Any device, software programme, user account, and the details and misuse the given information.
Often, we hear about hackers cracking the most complex passwords and viral all the essential data among the competitors. This can be stopped from happening through a cloud-based event management system. They can seamlessly ensure to host a particular event virtually that protects all the data in various devices accessible by your remote attendees. Event planners can have a complete overview of these data during and after the event effectively. For instance, analysing the recorded sessions, audios, and messages sent on an immediate basis all in one place.
Conduct an awareness session for your attendees
Looking at the current scenario where everything has been turned online, cyber crimes have also scaled up. According to statistics, almost 90% of data breaches transpire because of human error. By conducting a cyber safety awareness programme for your attendees, you will inform them about all the misfortune practices that might occur if they do not be cautious.
Moreover, these sessions must be involved in each internal sessions to communicate the message and keep reminding attendees about the safety measures. Create a short introduction of how cybercrime can affect the entire operations of the meeting and why to use a private Wi-Fi network instead of a public one. Public Wi-Fi networks are accessible by thousands of people at once. Therefore it becomes easier for hackers to hack your entire networking data within a few seconds.
Encourage attendees to avoid using free Wi-Fi in public, especially when the public network is not secure. Ask your participants to install antivirus software or firewalls in their devices to protect, detect, search, and eliminate software viruses. This will help them in filtering and blocking unauthentic activities grasping on your personal computer. In short, these tools can extensively avoid and detect cyber threats.
Additionally, throughout the event, dissuade delegates from approving any spam chat requests from anyone with suspect identities, particularly if they want any private or business-related data or information. If something like this happens, have attendees notify the event manager or meeting host as soon as possible.
Strengthen network security ahead of time
Networking security is a vital element for running a virtual event effectively. It usually helps in protecting and avoiding any unauthorised invasion of frauds to enter into corporate networks. According to CSO Online,” Network security is endpoint security that focuses upon discrete devices instead of focusing on the device interactivity and connections curated by them.”
As touched above, network security generally refers to protection, reaction, and detection, similar to any company security. This involves safeguarding and managing exterior network access, which can assist in the safety of devices regardless of geographic location. This is exceptionally critical for virtual events, as users are likely to check in from all over the region, if not the world. Access management (where the manager can prohibit unapproved users and devices from entering your network), portable phone and data encryption, and intrusion detection and prevention systems are all examples of cybersecurity approaches.
Ascertain that the event’s host organisation has safe networking alternatives in place, which will aid in event security on all facets.
Over to you
As we keep advancing in terms of technology and security, rare incidents have made event organisers aware of cyber safety at their virtual events. Get your hands on the tips mentioned above to create a user-friendly, secure, and away from cyber threat environment. Keep spreading awareness and updating your participants about cybercrimes and cyber safety to protect and prevent any mishap from occurring.
