Security Practices When Hosting Public Zoom Events

Using Zoom or other web conferencing tools for public meetings and events can increase the likelihood of unwanted guests and behaviors disrupting your meeting. A new term, "Zoombombing", was coined and is now well-known due to the rapid increase in these disruptive behaviors.

You can minimize the potential for Zoombombing by using good security practices when creating and during your Zoom session.

For additional information about managing all participants or a single participant see Zoom's Managing participants in a meeting support documentation.

Security Practices for Hosting Zoom Events

Important: Unless unavoidable, NEVER post online meeting IDs, passcodes, or meeting join urls to public media such as web pages and social media sites.

Prior to Your Event

Also see "Managing Disruptive Participants".
 

Add a Co-Host to Help Monitor Your Event

Adding a Co-Host can help you manage participants by monitoring and allowing access from your Zoom Waiting Room. A Co-Host can also help monitor Chat, scan participant tiles for questionable video, and watch for and remove a troublesome participant if needed.

Enable Registration

Enabling Participant Registration allows the Host to review information collected prior to the event such as the names and emails of registrants and even responses to questions asked during the registration process. 

Registrants can use any name and email address they wish when registering for your Zoom event. Scanning your registration list may let you know if you have an uninvited registrant.

Important to know:

• Enabling registration for a meeting can only be done from within UW-System's Zoom web portal.
• Registrants joining your meeting MUST use the Zoom desktop client or mobile app. They will be unable to join a meeting with the web client if registration is used.
• If you are hosting a more formal event and/or anticipating a large attendance you may wish to consider purchasing a Zoom Webinar license for your event. Compare Zoom Meetings vs. Webinars.

Set a Passcode

A Passcode is automatically generated and is selected when you schedule a meeting through UWSP's Zoom service.  Make sure to provide the meeting Passcode to your participants.

Enable the Waiting Room

The Waiting Room is selected by default when you schedule a Zoom meeting.  In smaller meetings, using the Waiting Room allows meeting Hosts and Co-Hosts to review participant names prior to admitting them to the meeting or event.  For larger events, managing a Waiting Room can become difficult without the assistance of a Co-Host.  If you choose not to use the Waiting Room, it is STRONGLY recommended that the meeting Passcode be shared with attendees to provide access to your event.

We recommend that you not disable the meeting Passcode and Waiting Room unless you deem necessary as they are your first line of defense to potential Zoombombing.

Tip: If needed, you can enable/disable the Waiting Room from within your Zoom meeting. Select Host Tools ​from the bottom of the Zoom screen to enable/disable the Enable Waiting Room setting.
 

Managing Disruptive Participants

When you or a Co-Host is ready to start the event, consider disabling the following settings, or be prepared to disable certain settings should you discover a disruptive participant.

Disable Participant Screen Sharing

Participant screen sharing is the main cause of disruption from Zoom bombing and is the reason this setting is disabled by default.  If your event requires screensharing, monitor all screen activities carefully.

Disable Participant Audio

To disable participant mics during your event, select Host Tools from the Meeting Controls toolbar at the bottom of the Zoom screen, then at the right select Participants from Host tools pane and disable Unmute themselves.

It is important to know that if participants have already enabled their audio, unselecting the Unmute Themselves option will not take effect.

To disable all participants' audio, click Participants at the bottom of the Zoom screen and click Mute All.

Disable Chat

While Chat allows participants to submit questions without interrupting a speaker, it is easy to disable if needed. Hosts still have access to post information and share resource links and files. You can also allow chat between participants and Host/Co-Host only to allow participants to submit questions and provide help in troubleshooting potential connection issues.

To disable participant chat during your event, select Host Tools from the Meeting Controls toolbar at the bottom of the Zoom screen, then select Participants from the right Host tools menu and disable Chat

You can also set your Event's Chat to allow participants to only chat with you the Host, and other Co-Hosts.

1. Select Chat from the Meeting Controls toolbar at the bottom of the Zoom screen.
2. In the Meeting Chat pane that opens, to the right of your event name click the ellipses and select Host and co-hosts.

Prevent Participants From Renaming Themselves

This setting is actually disabled by default so participant names are automatically based on their UWSP Zoom account, or in the case of guests, their computer’s user name. If you enable this setting consider occasionally reviewing your Participant list for any questionable names.

To locate this setting during your event, select Host Tools from the Meeting Controls toolbar at the bottom of the Zoom screen, then at the right select Participants from the Host tools pane to enable/disable Rename themselves.

Rename a Single Participant

If an external attendee's name has defaulted to displaying their computer name (e.g. "My Computer", or something more questionable) and you believe that displaying their own name might be more beneficial to your meeting dynamics, you can offer to change their display name for the event if they are unable.

To change their display name for the event, mouse over the participant's video tile then click the Ellipses (...) in the tile's upper-right corner. Select Rename.

Disable Participant Annotations During Screensharing

If there is no need for your event attendees to annotate when you are screensharing, consider disabling your participants' ability to do so.

If You Need to Remove a Participant

You can remove a participant if you find that they are being disruptive, or if an uninvited participant has entered your Zoom session.

To remove a participant, mouse over the participant's video tile then click the Ellipses (...) in the tile's upper-right corner. Select Remove.  When you remove a participant they will not be able to rejoin unless you allow participants to rejoin.

Disable a Participant's Video

To disable an individual participant's video if needed, mouse over the participant's video tile then click the Ellipses (...) in the tile's upper-right corner. Select Stop Video.

Don't Use the Waiting Room? Enable Participant Join/Exit Sounds

If you do not use the Waiting Room, for smaller meetings consider enabling a sound to let you know when someone new has joined.

Lock Your Meeting

For large events where you most likely do not know all of your attendees you can prevent disruption by locking your meeting after your event begins.

Select Host Tools from the Meeting Controls toolbar at the bottom of the Zoom screen, then at the right enable Lock meeting.