Keep uninvited guests out of your Zoom event

With the explosion of web conferencing to facilitate everything from online learning to family gatherings in recent weeks, hackers and Internet trolls have exploited our collective inexperience to disrupt meetings.  Hosts or attendees may share the Zoom meeting details via social media or within a group text, and uninvited guests will join simply to disrupt the meeting.  

These so-called Zoom-bombers then interrupt the presenter, write inappropriate things in the chat windows, share objectionable images via screen sharing and virtual backgrounds, and other disruptive acts.  These acts have become known as Zoom-Bombing.

Zoom published an article detailing the issue and provided several steps to help prevent your meetings and classes from becoming targets.  See How to Keep the Crashers Out of Your Zoom Event for details.

In particular, the Faculty Academy and UIndyIT recommend the following:

  • Don’t share your meeting details publicly
  • In Meeting Settings
    • Enable Waiting Rooms
    • Disable virtual backgrounds
    • Prevent participants from sharing their screen