Prevent Zoombombing

Zoombombing is a method by which anonymous participants can use Zoom’s screen-sharing and other features to interrupt and disrupt meetings and classes. Zoombombing has become a major concern since all schools have moved to an online format.

Below is a list of recommendations to prevent Zoombombing. Zoom has already made some security changes, but all users should review this page for best practices. We’d like to thank our colleagues at Plymouth State University who shared much of the information below along with more information on how to Control Participants in your Meeting.

1. Best Practices
2. Consider Your Default Settings
3. Require Authentication
4. Other settings:

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Best Practices

• Don’t post Zoom links on a public website or social media.
• Don’t use your personal meeting ID for meetings.
• Always schedule your meetings by logging into the KSC Zoom website where you’ll have access to all the security features included with Zoom.
• Set up a meeting for each Zoom session for your class/meeting sessions. Reusing Zoom meeting IDs creates better odds that the Meeting ID may have been shared on the open web.
• Avoid using the “Start A Meeting” or “Instant Meeting” option as it does not give you the opportunity to modify the meeting settings.

Consider Your Default Settings

Hosts and participants can log in to Zoom by doing the following:

• To sign-in, go to the KSC Zoom website and click on “SIGN IN to KSC Zoom”
• From there you can log in using your KSC username and password.

Once logged into Zoom, update your user settings to ensure that all future meetings inherit the settings you define as the default. Here are some settings you may want to consider:

• Turn off ‘Join before host’
• Turn off ‘Private chat’
• Ensure that ‘screen sharing’ is set to host only
• Turn off ‘Remote control’
• Turn off ‘Allow removed participants to rejoin’

Require Authentication

You can set your meeting to so only KSC authenticated users can join meetings. To do this, when creating your meeting:

• Go to Meeting Options
• Select - Only Authorized Users Can Join

If someone tries to join your meeting and isn’t logged into Zoom, they will be prompted to sign in to join.

KSC users need to sign in using one of the two methods below in order to join a meeting with this setting configured:

Sign in via the website:

1. To sign-in, go to the KSC Zoom website and click on “SIGN IN to KSC Zoom”
2. From there you can log in using your KSC username and password.

Other settings:

1. Mute participants upon entry: Hosts can mute/unmute individual participants or all of them at once. Hosts can block unwanted, distracting, or inappropriate noise from other participants.
2. Enable a waiting room: The Waiting Room feature allows the host to control when a participant joins the meeting. As the meeting host, you can admit attendees one by one or hold all attendees in the waiting room and admit them all at once.
3. Participants video: Hosts can turn someone’s video off. This will allow hosts to block unwanted, distracting, or inappropriate gestures on video.
4. Disable private chat: Zoom has two in-meeting chats; one for everyone or private participant chat. Restrict participants’ ability to chat amongst one another while your event is going on and cut back on distractions. This prevents anyone from getting unwanted messages during the meeting.
5. Remove unwanted or disruptive participants: From that Participants menu, you can mouse over a participant’s name, and several options will appear, including Remove. Click Remove to remove someone from your meeting.
6. Disable the ability to Annotate: The host and the participants can doodle and mark up content together using annotations during screen share. Disable the annotation feature in your Zoom settings to prevent people from writing all over the screens.
7. Put an attendee on hold: You can put an attendee on hold as a way of stopping the transmission of video and audio. This allows others to continue meeting while the participant is prevented from seeing and hearing others.

• Click on someone’s video thumbnail and select Start Attendee On Hold to activate this feature.
• Click Take Off Hold in the Participants list when you’re ready to have them back.