Question
How do I secure my meetings in Zoom? What are potential threats if I don't secure my meeting?
Overview
“Zoombombing” is a form of trolling that disrupts online meetings and classes with disturbing language or images through screen sharing. As reports of Zoombombing rise, U-M is taking proactive measures to ensure our meetings, classes, and community are protected.
We highly encourage our community to do everything possible to secure their meetings, participants, and data, and recommend the following methods of securing your Zoom meetings. See our Quick Start Guide: Securing Meetings in Zoom for more information. If you would like to see some of the settings mentioned below demonstrated and explained you can view the recorded Zoom Security Training - Zoombombing Prevention session here, the Powerpoint used in the recorded session can be found here.
Process
Recommended Meeting Security Settings:
- To allow only UMICH authenticated users to join the meeting, check the box in the Meeting Options for "Only authenticated users can join"
- Send participants to the Waiting Room. (Meetings only) Only the host can allow participants in the Waiting Room into the live meeting. See Waiting Room for more information.
- Enable Require a password when scheduling new meetings or webinars through the Meeting tab of your Settings. Participants will then be required to enter a password to join the meeting.
- Note: This option should not be used as the only way to protect your zoom meeting. Please use at least one of the above security settings if setting a passcode) See Meeting and Webinar Passwords for more information.
Additionally Security Settings
- Disable Join before hosts to ensure participants are not able to join the meeting before the host arrives. See Scheduling meetings for more information.
- Disable In Meeting Chat through your Profile settings. Here you can toggle off allowing participants to chat. This is also where you can prevent users from saving chat. See Disabling In-Meeting Chat for more information.
- Ensure only hosts can share their screen through Settings by un-checking Participants under Who can Share? See Managing participants in a meeting for more information. This is on by default.
- Disable File Transfer in Settings, which will ensure participants are not allowed to share files in the in-meeting chat during the meeting. See In-Meeting File Transfer for more information.
- Stop a participant's video stream to ensure participants are not on video through Manage Participants. See Managing participants in a meeting for more information.
- Click to Mask phone numbers in the participant list through the Telephone tab in Settings. This masks all telephone numbers called into the meeting.
Settings when scheduling your meeting or webinar:
- Mute all participants that are already in the meeting and new participants joining the meeting through Manage Participants. You will be asked to confirm if you’d like to allow participants to unmute themselves. You can choose to uncheck this option. See Mute All And Unmute All for more information.
- Lock your meeting allows hosts to lock the meeting right at the start (or when enough attendees have joined). At the point a meeting is locked, no other participants are able to join the meeting. See Can I Restrict My Meeting Capacity for more information.
- Put participants On Hold through Manage Participants while in a meeting. When a user is put on hold, they will be taken out of the meeting until the host clicks to take the user off hold. See Attendee On Hold for more information.
- Disable private chat through Manage Participants. This prohibits participants from private chatting with other participants. See In-Meeting Chat for more information.
Other suggestions for ensuring a secure meeting:
- Do not publish URL in public communication channels
- Remind participants to not share meeting details
See Host and Co-Host Controls in a Meeting for more information on meeting controls.
For additional information:
How to Secure Meetings and Webinars in Zoom - Ann Arbor
Zoom Security Training - Zoombombing Prevention - Recorded Session
Zoom Security Settings Training - Powerpoint