Skip to main content

One Step Ahead: Securing Collaboration Tools

One Step Ahead logo

Another tip in a series provided by the Offices of Information Security, Information Systems & Computing and Audit, Compliance & Privacy

The University of Pennsylvania provides several collaboration tools for video conferencing, classes, texting, calling, and file sharing. These tools include Microsoft Teams, Zoom, BlueJeans, Slack, and OneDrive. Faculty and staff can use a University-supported collaboration tool based on their business or educational needs.

Before selecting a collaboration tool, learning how to protect the privacy and information shared through these systems is essential.

  • First, know your data: learn what type of data you can (or cannot) store in a file-sharing system, or share with University vs. non-University employees.
    • Consider using Secure Share to share data classified as a high- or moderate-risk in the Penn Data Risk Classification.
  • Use your PennKey and password to access collaboration tools.
  • Add collaborators to a file-sharing system only after carefully determining what degree of access or “privileges” they should have for a document or folder.
    • On Microsoft Teams, under the Privacy option, select “Private – Only team owners can add members” to prevent uninvited individuals from joining a Teams chat, files, or video conferencing.
    • On a OneDrive document or folder settings, choose the “Share” option, then select “Specific People” option to limit access to individuals you want to share documents with.
    • For MS SharePoint, go to privacy settings and select “Private – only members can access this site” to only grant access to individuals with a PennKey.
  • Protect the Zoom sessions you host by disabling the “File Transfer” and “Join before host” options.
  • Make sure your mobile device is up to date with the latest security settings when using mobile collaboration tools’ apps.

Please contact your IT support staff if you have questions about securing a collaboration tool supported by Penn. You can also visit the following resources for detailed information:

Back to Top