Zooming Securely: Some tips from FOC and your LSPs

Thanks to Erika Priddy of FOC and Michael Hayton, LSP for contributing this piece

Now that we're all Zoomers, you may have seen reports in the media about Zoom meetings getting hacked by people who then take over the meeting with disruptive and often disturbing behavior.

There have also been reports of uninvited people hacking into a meeting and then sending malicious links in the chat, stealing people’s Windows credentials. Here are some tips from the FBI to prevent “Zoombombing”:

• Keep meetings and classrooms private. Do this by requiring a meeting password. Additionally, the “Waiting Room” feature can help hosts control who enters.
• Do not share invites to Zoom meetings on social media. Instead, send the meeting password directly to attendees.
• Use a random meeting ID, so it can’t be shared multiple times. According to Zoom’s website, this is safer than using a “Personal Meeting ID."
• Change screen sharing settings to “Only Host,” so no one but the host can control the screen. The host can also mute participants in their settings.
• Lock a Zoom session that has already begun so no one else can join. Do this by clicking “Participants” in the bottom of a Zoom window, then clicking “Lock Meeting.”
• Remove participants by hovering over their name in the Participants menu, and clicking the “Remove” option. The removed participant will not be allowed back in, according to Zoom’s website.
• Make sure you have the most updated version of Zoom’s software. A recent security update added default passwords and disabled the ability to scan for meetings to join.

Adding a password seems like one of the easiest ways to protect our meetings going forward. When scheduling a meeting, ensure the box is checked next to “Require meeting password."

In addition to not using your Personal ID to host meetings, this Waiting Room feature looks like it should be able to catch any riff-raff trying to enter and ruin a party.

Also- once everyone has joined, locking the session seems like it could accomplish the task as well.