Zoom Security

“Zoom bombing” is a practice where participants take control of a Zoom meeting and make themselves the “host” of the meeting. They often share disturbing and sometimes violent images and messages. While all Zoom gatherings are at risk, there are some areas/topics that have increased likelihood of attracting such negative and unwelcome attention.

Here are some suggestions for reducing the opportunity for your Zoom meetings to be “bombed”, as well as measures that you can put in place to limit the impact should a stranger take control of your meeting.

• Do not publicly post passwords to your Zoom meeting. · If you are having a public gathering, consider hosting a webinar instead. This limits participants’ interactions to the chat function which, in turn, can be limited to engagement solely with panellists.
• Limit participation to registered attendees:
  • Enable the feature that requires participants to enter the meeting using the same email address with which they registered;
  • Create a password for your meeting after the registration period and provide the password only to registered participants prior to the start of the event;
  • Do not permit attendees to join before the host;
  • Once the meeting has started: turn off screen sharing permission for everyone but the host and co-host; and
  • Disable the video and audio for participants as they enter the meeting.
• If you want to have more interaction with your meeting participants:
  • Have trusted colleagues take on co-host functions (Zoom provides practice meetings)
    • Have at least one person with co-host permissions whose sole responsibility is to monitor the chat and video screens and to remove participants from the meeting; and
    • Have a plan for your co-host to let you (the host) know if the meeting needs to be ended immediately.
• Have a plan if you need to shut down your meeting:
  • Advise participants that the meeting is being monitored or recorded;
  • Let your participants know that you will end the meeting immediately if there are security/safety concerns;
  • Determine if you will continue the meeting on a different link or reschedule to a different day; and
  • Download/print the attendees’ list once the meeting has ended as this may be helpful in identifying the person/s of concern.

Click here for a guide of suggested Zoom account settings when hosting meetings.