Thirty-one percent of businesses now rate security as their most important purchase criterion when selecting videoconferencing and collaboration products — ahead of price (26 percent) and quality (25 percent), according to IDC.
IDC: security outranks price and quality in procurement
The shift in procurement priorities is striking: IDC finds security sits at the top of the vendor-selection checklist for videoconferencing and meeting-room technology. The study also quantifies the specific risks buyers fear most. Exposure to cyberattackers that could enable malware propagation ranks highest (47 percent), followed by devices falling out of compliance due to missing patches and updates (39 percent), and risky employee behavior that can lead to inadvertent or deliberate data exposure (37 percent).
Yannic Laleeuwe: collaboration tools are "mission-critical business systems"
Yannic Laleeuwe, marketing director for Barco's ClickShare, frames the issue in blunt terms: collaboration and videoconferencing solutions now process “significant volumes of the most sensitive corporate information” and sit on crucial networks and cloud services. She warns that historical incidents and the rapid growth of hybrid work have shown that weaknesses in these platforms can produce data breaches, operational disruption, regulatory exposure, and loss of customer trust. For Laleeuwe, security has moved from a technical detail to a strategic procurement and governance priority.
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End the scrambleExpanded attack surface: users, devices, cloud services, home networks
Hybrid work has turned meeting rooms into distributed, highly connected spaces. The source lays out how users, endpoints, cloud services, home networks, and collaboration platforms become entry points on corporate networks even when they were not designed for enterprise deployment. That expanding attack surface increases attraction for adversaries because collaboration systems often interface with corporate systems and frequently process intellectual property, strategic discussions, and customer data, Laleeuwe explains.
European regulatory pressure: NIS2, Radio Equipment Delegated Act, Cyber Resilience Act
Regulation is tightening in response. The article cites a suite of European rules now in play: the European Union's Network and Information Security 2 Directive (NIS2), which mandates strict risk management and incident reporting for medium-to-large organizations across 18 critical sectors; the Radio Equipment Delegated Act to secure wireless equipment; and the Cyber Resilience Act, which aims to protect buyers of network-connected hardware and software. Alongside these laws, global standards such as ISO/IEC 27001 are presented as frameworks that define information-security best practice. The net effect, the piece argues, is that cybersecurity has become "a legal and business obligation" — a precondition for market access and customer trust.
Barco ClickShare: a secure-by-design example
The article positions Barco's ClickShare wireless video conferencing, presentation, and collaboration solution as an embodiment of secure-by-design principles. Barco is said to have developed ClickShare from the ground up with secure architecture and coding, combined with proactive vulnerability management that monitors newly disclosed vulnerabilities and issues risk-based security updates. Automatic deployment of those security updates is highlighted as a way to simplify maintenance across large device fleets and reduce exposure to known and evolving threats. As Laleeuwe puts it, "The advantage is that security is handled largely in the background, reducing the risk of human error, improving adoption, and allowing people to concentrate on productive collaboration rather than system administration."
What this means for technologists and security teams, procurement leaders, and integrators
- Technologists and security teams: Expect to shift from perimeter-focused models toward zero-trust approaches that continuously verify users, devices, and connections; pursue consolidated visibility into assets, vulnerabilities, compliance, and events.
- Procurement leaders and enterprises: Treat security as a market-access requirement — demand lifecycle security from vendors, insist on automatic and timely vulnerability updates, and balance centralized governance with local business agility.
- Integrators and technology providers: Own secure deployment and configuration, maintain transparent vulnerability disclosure, and coordinate with customers and downstream partners to sustain supply-chain security.
The lesson threading through the reporting is pragmatic: embed security from design through end-of-life, centralize oversight without smothering local operational needs, and make security as unobtrusive as possible for end users. As Laleeuwe concludes, "The most effective approach balances local operational autonomy with centralized governance, ensuring consistent security, compliance, and strategic control without compromising business efficiency." That balance — between enforceable controls and usable systems — is where procurement choices, regulatory compliance, and day-to-day collaboration converge.
