6 Settings to secure your ZOOM meetings and keep ZOOM Bombers out!

Boy, what a year this week has been….in 2020 we have added new terms to our lexicon such as #StaySafe, #SocialDistancing, #FlatteningTheCurve. Now there is a new one to add to our vocabulary: ZoomBombers.  This is the term we use to describe when your private Zoom video conferencing sessions are gate-crashed by weirdos who show up to wreak havoc and invade our privacy at home! It’s time to secure your Zoom meetings.

To be clear, this happened not because the ZOOM software is bad, but because some basic security settings were not set up by the meeting host.

But first, you might be asking, how are Zoombombers finding the link to join your personal sessions?

Simple. There is no “hack” per se. By simply doing a quick simple Google search, you are instantly able to find many ZOOM links on publicly accessible Facebook groups, company websites, schools, and online forums.

How can you secure your zoom meetings in 5 steps:

1. Obviously don’t post the URL in places that anyone can access. Only send the meeting invite link to those who need to attend and do it via email, instant message, slack, Facebook messengers etc.
2. When you setup zoom you are given a Personal Meeting ID. The idea is that you have your own meeting room that never changes so to keep your meetings safe, select the option that creates a random meeting ID. You can change this by going to your Zoom Web Settings and select Schedule a Meeting
   
3. Enable the option to have a Waiting Room for your meeting. This allows people to connect to a holding area where you can customize a message with the guidelines and who is allowed in. Find this under Settings, In Meeting (Advanced) and Waiting Room.
   
4. Don’t allow just anyone to share their screen. In the Web settings, go to meetings and lock the screen share as a default option.
   
   While you are in the meeting, click on Share Screen, then Advance Options and then select ONLY HOST can share.
   
5. Unless there is a very specific reason, you want to disable File Sharing while in Zoom. Just go to settings on the web, click on Meeting (Basic) and find File Transfer. Disable that.
6. You can strictly control who can join the meetings – if they aren’t on the list they aren’t getting in. To enable that go to Zoom Web Settings, Schedule Meeting, and enable Only Authenticated users can join meetings. Even if someone finds the meeting links and the password, they still need to be logged in to zoom. You can also set that they need to be in a specific domain to lock it down even more.