Video conferencing has quickly evolved into a technology that’s everywhere, from Facebook feeds to corporate boardrooms. Its value as a communications tool is profound. But so too is its vulnerability to hackers.

Rapid 7 — a security company estimates there are great number of video conferencing system — about 150,000 systems. Some hackers can find vulnerabilities in board room webcam or video conferencing systems and spy on the board room.

They say there are silent participants in video conferencing systems. Some offenders are even able to control cameras that have panning functions, if they have the software.

With the software, hackers can simply type in the IP address and tell it to dial the video conferencing system. Hackers can get an IP address by guessing or by looking at e-mail header information. IP addresses can also be obtained from web statistics programs. For example, a victim could click on an unknown link in a Facebook ad or post. When the victim lands on the offender’s web page, the web statistic for the victim’s IP address shows up on the web statistics software showing the visited pages of the offenders web site.

Offenders can take a picture of a post-it note on a desk or take a picture of document sitting on a desk. If they’re lucky, they might find a bank account password or other password, valuable intellectual property or gather information about who is in a meeting, and what was said.

Users should make sure their webcams and video conferencing software is password protected, and not with the default password, or a password that is easy to guess.

Rapid 7: Vulnerability Management and Penetration Testing

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