ARE IT Updates

How to secure your Zoom meetings

By Bogdan Nikiforov

Zoom provides a variety of ways for hosts to secure their online meetings and limit the potential for disruptions. A Zoom session might be accidentally disrupted by a participant who speaks out of turn unaware that their microphone is active, or might be deliberately disrupted by a person who intentionally shares inappropriate or offensive video or audio (sometimes called “Zoom bombing”)..

Security settings for Zoom meetings

Your meeting settings determine what security is in place for Zoom meetings that you create. Your Zoom meeting settings can be modified by logging in at https://ncsu.zoom.us/profile/setting. Suggestions for how to configure your settings are listed below. You may not need to apply all of these suggestions. Use the ones that make sense for your own use case, and modify them as needed to fit your needs.

  • Restrict your meeting to authenticated users only. To join your meeting, attendees will have to be signed into Zoom using their NC State account.
  1. In your meeting settings, make sure that the setting Only authenticated users can join meetings is enabled.
  2. When creating a meeting, select the checkbox for Only authenticated users can join, and in the menu below it, select “NC State users only.”
  • Enable the Waiting Room feature. When joining your meeting, attendees will not enter directly, but instead will be placed into a waiting room. The meeting host can move attendees from the waiting room individually or all at once. More information: Zoom article on Waiting Room.
    1. When creating a meeting, select the checkbox for Enable waiting room. By default, the waiting room applies to all attendees.
    2. To have the Enable waiting room setting checked by default for your scheduled meetings, or to customize your Waiting room, go to your meeting settings and enable the Waiting room setting, which provides additional options.
  • Customize the Waiting Room and apply it only to non-authenticated attendees.
    1. In your meeting settings, enable the Waiting room setting.
    2. Select the option Guest participants only. Attendees who are logged in with an NC State Zoom account will bypass the waiting room.
    3. Consider adding a custom message to the Waiting Room that says something like “Sign into your NC State Zoom account to bypass the Waiting Room.” To customize your Waiting Room, click the pencil icon in the Waiting Room settings.
  • Require a password to join your meeting. Participants must enter a password that you provide before they are allowed to enter the meeting. More information: Zoom article on Meeting Passwords.
    1. When creating a meeting, make sure the checkbox for Require meeting password is checked, and enter a password of your choice.
    2. To have the Require meeting password setting checked by default for your scheduled meetings, go to your meeting settings and enable the Require a password when scheduling new meetings setting.
  • Require pre-registration to join your meeting. Participants must register in advance in order to receive the information on how to join the meeting. More information: Zoom article on Registration for Meetings.
    1. When creating a meeting, in the Registration setting, make sure the checkbox for “Required” is selected.
    2. After the meeting is created, customize the registration options as desired. See the Zoom article on Registration for Meetings for full instructions.
    3. Share the Registration URL with attendees. After they register, they will be provided with the Meeting URL.

 

Host controls during a meeting

Be prepared to address problems with inappropriate behavior or other disruptions during a Zoom meeting by familiarizing yourself with Zoom’s in-meeting controls that allow the host to control what participants are allowed to do within the session. More information is available in the Zoom help article on Managing participants in a meeting.

  • Remove a person from the session temporarily
    • In the Participants panel, hover over the name of the person you want to put on hold. Click “More,” then select either “Put on hold” or “Put in waiting room,” depending on whether or not you have enabled the Waiting Room feature for your meeting.
  • Remove a person from the session permanently
    • In the Participants panel, hover over the name of the person you want to put on hold. Click “More,” and then select “Remove.”
    • Alternately, click the menu in the corner of that person’s video, and select “Remove.”
    • The “Allow removed participants to rejoin” setting is defaulted to Off at the account level, so the removed person will not be able to rejoin unless you have changed this setting.
  • Mute a person’s microphone
    • In the Participants panel, hover over the name of the person you want to mute, and then click the “Mute” button.
  • Mute all participants’ microphones
    • At the bottom of the Participants panel, click the “Mute All” button, then click the “Continue” button on the confirmation pop-up.
    • On the confirmation pop-up, make sure “Allow participants to unmute themselves” is unchecked unless you want them to have this ability.
  • Stop the current screen share
    • Click the “View Options” menu at the top of the screen, and select “Stop Participant’s Share.”
  • Prevent all participant screen sharing in the meeting
    • In the Zoom toolbar at the bottom of the screen, click the up arrow to the right to the Share Screen button, select “Advanced Sharing Options,” and under “Who can share?” select “Only Host.”
  • Prevent all participant Chat
    • In the Chat panel, click the menu in the lower right and under “Participant can chat with,” select “No one” or “Host only.”
  • Clear annotations from the whiteboard or shared screen
    • In the annotation toolbar, click “Clear,” and then select “Clear All Drawings,” or “Clear Viewers’ Drawings” to leave your own drawings in place.
  • Disable participant ability to annotate
    • In the main Zoom toolbar, click “More” and then select “Disable participants annotation.”

 

Security settings for Zoom recordings

To modify settings related to your Zoom recordings, log in to your meeting settings and select the Recording tab.  For more information, see the Zoom articles on Account Settings and on Managing Cloud Recordings.

  • Local recording. This setting determines whether meeting hosts are allowed to record meetings to their local computer. A sub-setting gives hosts the ability to allow participants in their meetings to record locally. Both settings are enabled at the account level but can be disabled if desired.
  • Only authenticated users can view cloud recordings. This setting allows hosts to require authentication to view their cloud recordings. This setting is enabled by default, but it can be changed later when sharing a specific recording if a specific recording needs to be shared publicly.

 

This Knowledge base article was written by DELTA comes directly from DELTA and can be found here