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Securing Remote Education
Case Study
2021
Case Study
2021
The market for conferencing software absolutely boomed when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
According to the Carleton Newsroom, the web application was downloaded 17,000 times within 48 hours in the first week of April 2020 (around when most universities decided to switch completely online).
In this year of complete growth, the world saw conferencing softwares face a plethora of public security issues, including flaws end-to-end encryption which allowed meeting attendees to access unauthorized data from other attendees. Even in 2021, these platforms saw more issues with flaws in encrypted chats that preserved images in online directories, even after the user deleted them.
In the security world, video conferencing softwares are known to hold more risk including the risk of impersonation, unauthorized access, de-anonymizing users, or cross-site request forgery within chat or web socket communication features.
According to the Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS), they also name the top security concerns as:
BigBlueButton is a video conferencing software hosted by Blindside Networks. BigBlueButton, most often used by higher education institutions, also benefited from the rapid market upswing.
According to the Carleton Newsroom, the web application was downloaded 17,000 times within 48 hours in the first week of April 2020 (around when most universities decided to switch completely online).
BigBlueButton differs from most other conferencing software as it’s an open source web application, allowing organizations to meet specific needs through app customization.
Blindside Networks found their business with BigBlueButton was growing exponentially as the result of higher education moving to the cloud in the pandemic. Looking to move beyond the yearly ‘checkbox-style’ security testing that many firms undergo, Blindside Networks chose Software Secured to run manual testing with quarterly Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS). This choice ensured they could continuously push secure code to production without sacrificing security, as PTaaS tests all new code.
For a business that works closely with their clients, it was essential to Blindside Networks to also choose a security testing provider that could work with them more as a partner in security. Their choice in working with Software Secured means their security dollars go towards more than a PDF report. In addition, they also gain security consulting to help their development team integrate security in their design decisions, and year-round comprehensive coverage on their application to provide a functional, secure product for their clients. As a result, Blindside Networks remained secure throughout the rapid digitization of the past two years, and they will continue to hold that confidence for their Big Blue Button application.