How can I prevent Zoombombing?
What is Zoombombing?
Zoombombing is when an uninvited person joins a Zoom meeting and, with their video, audio, or screensharing, shares unwanted content to the meeting.
Recommended Practices to Prevent Zoombombing
REMEMBER: Never share a Zoom meeting link in a public setting, such as on social media or online bulletin boards, in blog posts or news articles, or on listserves or email lists with wide distribution.
BEFORE THE ZOOM MEETING
Schedule Your Meetings with a Unique URL
You can schedule a Zoom meeting to have a unique URL (instead of your sharing your personal meeting URL, which is permanent and can easily be shared out in unwanted ways).
- NOTE: Recurring meetings offer the same URL each week. Consider scheduling these as individual meetings with unique URLs
- See: How do I set up a meeting directly in Zoom?
- See: How can I invite my students to a Zoom meeting from Canvas or TUSK?
Prevent Removed Participants from Rejoining a Meeting
- In your Zoom account settings, disable "Allow Removed Participants to Rejoin" so booted attendees can't re-enter the meeting. Log into your Tufts Zoom account, and find this under Settings > Meeting > In-Meeting (Basic)
- NOTE: This is disabled by default in your Tufts Zoom account.
- See: Account Settings
Password Protect Your Meeting
- Require a password for entry to a Zoom meeting. To do this, enable three settings in your Zoom user account:
- "Require a password when scheduling new meetings",
- "Require a password for Instant Meetings"
- "Require a password for Personal Meeting ID"
- In addition, be sure to disable the setting called "Embed password in meeting link for one-click join". This means you will have to provide the password in a separate communication from the meeting link. This is less convenient, but is a deterrent to unwanted visitors.
- See: Require a Password
- See: Account Settings
Only Allow Participants in the Room When You are There
- When setting up the meeting, be sure to disable "Join before host", so that the meeting can only be in progress when you, the host, are present. You can disable this in the meeting settings when you are creating the meeting. You can also disable this for all your meetings, if you choose, in your Zoom user account settings.
- NOTE: This setting is enabled by default in Tufts Zoom accounts, so be sure to disable manually if that is what you want to do.
- See: How do I set up a meeting directly in Zoom?
- See: How can I invite my students to a Zoom meeting from Canvas or TUSK?
- See: Account Settings
Only Share the Meeting Link Right Before the Meeting
- Use a calendar tool such as Canvas Calendar, or Outlook, or Google Calendar to invite participants to an event, but don't share the Zoom meeting link in the invitation. Then, a few minutes before the Zoom meeting is about to start, email out the meeting link, which should be a unique link, rather than your Personal Meeting ID or Link.
- See: How do I set up a meeting directly in Zoom?
Identify Meeting Participants
- Enable "Identify Meeting Participants", so that you as the meeting host and other Tufts Zoom users can check the participants list to see if a participant who lacks a Tufts Zoom account has joined the meeting. Enable this in your Zoom account settings.
- See: Identify Guest Participants
Prevent Participants from Transferring Files
- Disable In-Meeting File Transfer in your Zoom account settings, so theres no digital virus sharing.
- NOTE: This is disabled by default in Tufts Zoom accounts.
- See: In-Meeting File Transfer
REMEMBER: Never share a Zoom meeting link in a public setting, such as on social media or online bulletin boards, in blog posts or news articles, or on listserves or email lists with wide distribution.
DURING THE ZOOM MEETING
Join Your Meeting as the Host
- When you start up your Zoom meeting, make sure you start it as the host, rather than clicking the invitation link and joining as a participant.
- See: How do I set up a meeting directly in Zoom?
Include a Co-Host in your Meeting
- Enabling Co-Host so you can assign others to help moderate.(This is the default setting, and users who are "alternate hosts" will also join the meeting as a Co-Host by default)
- See: Enabling and Adding a Co-Host
- See: Host and Co-Host Controls in a Meeting
Lock Your Zoom Meeting After All Participants Have Arrived
- Once all attendees have arrived, you can 'lock' the meeting via the participant list. This is analogous to locking a physical door to the classroom.
- See: Managing Participants in a Meeting
Only You as Host Can Share Your Screen
- As host of a Zoom meeting, you can prevent all other participants from sharing their screen.
- See: Managing Participants in a Meeting
- See: Sharing Your Screen
Eject a Problem Visitor from the Zoom Meeting
- Identify the problem user and use "Remove" in the Participants window to dismiss them permanently from the meeting. Just be sure to remove the unwanted user, not wanted participants.
- See: Managing Participants in a Meeting
Shut Down the Meeting
- In an emergency, end the meeting by clicking "End meeting" in the lower right corner of the Zoom window. Then set-up a new meeting with a unique URL, and send it to participants via a Canvas Announcement, the Canvas InBox tool, and email, etc.