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Cisco has revealed its video conferencing platform Webex will receive a host of new security facilities designed to better reflect the new business reality.
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Cisco Live! 2020, the firm announced it would build upon existing security facilities by extending its data loss prevention (DLP) retention.
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Like competitors Zoom and Microsoft Teams, Cisco was well-positioned to capitalize on the sudden dependence on cloud-based collaboration services.
Cisco has revealed its video conferencing platform Webex will receive a host of new security facilities designed to better reflect the new business reality, amid an unprecedented surge in demand. At Cisco Live! 2020, the firm announced it would build upon existing security facilities by extending its data loss prevention (DLP) retention, Legal Hold and eDiscovery to Webex Meetings.
The service will also see AES 256 Bit encryption with GCM mode added to its end-to-end encryption options - a move designed to deliver superior protection for meeting data and resistance to tampering. The company also revealed it has scaled Webex’s global capacity dramatically in recent weeks, and is now running the service at three times the previous capacity. The platform supported half a billion meeting participants in April alone, accounting for 25 billion meeting minutes.
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Think this is the opportunity, this is the time to build out a more robust technology infrastructure to prepare for what’s next, because we don’t know what will come next
~ Robbins said, Cyber Security
What we know is possible now versus what we believed 6 months will fundamentally change how we think about work in the future. Period.It’s time to think about how our wider network architecture really needs to change, based on these incredibly different traffic flows we see today, versus the way they were when we architected this infrastructure 15-20 years ago. Like competitors Zoom and Microsoft Teams, Cisco was well-positioned to capitalize on the sudden dependence on cloud-based collaboration services.
Having scaled rapidly to match the explosion in demand, the firm is now looking to cement its position with a heightened emphasis on security - an issue that has defined recent debates around video collaboration. When it comes to business meetings, learning in classrooms, doctors appointments, government hearings - those need safeguarding,” said Javed Khan, VP and GM of Cisco’s Collaboration Group. Security has to be core to who you are as a company. It is not something that can be bolted on top as an afterthought.
It’s time to think about how our wider network architecture really needs to change, based on these incredibly different traffic flows we see today, versus the way they were when we architected this infrastructure.
According to the firm, dynamism defines the new enterprise environment, and security measures should reflect this new reality. Cybercriminals have launched a new series of phishing attacks which attempt to steal the account credentials of Cisco Webex users by utilizing fake certificate error warnings. Just as other video conferencing software has seen a huge uptick in usage by remote workers during the pandemic, so to has Cisco's video and team collaboration solution. So far the campaign, which uses graphics and formatting taken from legitimate Cisco emails to impersonate the company, has already sent out phishing emails to up to 5,000 Webex users according to the email security firm Abnormal Security.
The attackers try to lure in users by inducing a sense of urgency in their phishing emails that are designed to closely resemble the automated SSL certificate error alerts that the company sends out to its customers. The phishing emails used in the campaign warn unsuspecting users that they need to verify their accounts as they are blocked by the administrator as a result of Webex Meeting SSL certificate errors. Users are then asked to click on an embedded “Log in” hyperlink in the message and sign in in order to unlock their accounts. Abnormal Security provided more details on the link contained in the campaign's phishing emails in an advisory, saying.
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