Is your video conferencing technology giving others a look inside your business?

Businesses communicate in a lot of ways and, increasingly, are turning to an array of videoconferencing tools as the technology becomes easier to use and more ubiquitous. It provides an upfront, cost-effective opportunity for virtual face-to-face meetings.

The technology is blossoming; Nearly every week, a news release comes in about the latest service to launch, interoperability deal reached or about a new product rolling out targeting the SME and SMB markets, not to mention the near daily releases that pop up with the newest consumer offering.

The technology has, like a YouTube video, seemingly gone viral. Its mobility, its ease of use has begun to make it so commonplace that it's increasingly become just another app or program that users click to use and forget about.

In fact, ABI Research senior analyst Subha Rama said in a webcast last week that the technology, which has been gathering steam, was likely to explode once LTE becomes widely available, especially with so many more dual camera devices coming to market.

"When the technology integrates with a popular mobile device the issue resolves almost instantly," said Rama during a Webcast on Thursday.

But there's some new concerns about videoconferencing and security that are bound to rattle some cages in the coming week, and they're extreme enough that they could potentially cause adoption to stutter until they're resolved.

In a New York Times story today, a security officer for Rapid 7, told of how he created a computer program that, in two hours, discovered 5,000 open videoconference systems that were outside the firewall of their companies and that were configured to automatically answer calls.

The companies included law firms, venture capital companies, pharmaceutical firms, universities and medical centers.

Moore said he was able to call into systems made by Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM), Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Logitech (Nasdaq: LOGI)'s LifeSize, Sony and others. Polycom, the Times said, ships all of its platforms with the auto-answer feature enabled by default (which can easily be changed by users, Polycom told the Times).

"It boils down to whether organizations are aware of the risk, and our research indicates that many, even well-heeled venture capital firms, were not aware and do not implement even the most basic of security measures," he said.

Mike Tuchen, CEO of Rapid 7, warned that companies simply have dropped the ball on videoconferencing security, especially as videoconferencing's popularity has grown.

"The entry bar has fallen to the floor. These are literally some of the world's most important boardrooms--this is where their most critical meetings take place--and there could be silent attendees in all of them," he said, sounding an ominous tone.

"Any reasonably computer literate 6-year-old can try this at home."

How secure is videoconferencing? Is the rapid expansion of the technology putting sensitive business information at risk? And, does the surge of new, less expensive videoconferencing solutions open the door to hackers even wider?

Love to hear your thoughts.--Jim