How to Prevent Zoom Bombing

“Zoom Bombing” is the practice of unwanted guests intruding on video meetings for malicious purposes. You can try and prevent Zoom Bombings in several ways, both before and during your meeting. It is best practice to go through your settings when you log into the University of Pittsburgh’s Zoom Videoconferencing landing page as many of these settings can be changed for individual meetings as well as at your account level so that every meeting may have specific settings and you do not have to worry about changing them for each unique meeting.

The star * indicates if a setting can be changed at the account level and can additionally be found through settings when logging into Pitt’s Zoom Videoconferencing landing page.

BEFORE the Meeting (Scheduling and Settings):

Download and print our handy tip-sheet for what to do if your meeting gets zoombombed (PDF – 243KB ) to keep handy during your meetings.

*Only Authenticated Users Setting

This setting is found when you log into the University of Pittsburgh’s Zoom Videoconferencing landing page or through the Zoom integration within Canvas and click on Settings. It is under the In Meeting (Basic) category. If you switch it on, then it will prompt people to sign into Zoom with their Pitt SSO accounts when attempting to join a meeting.

*Disallow Removed Participants to Rejoin

This setting is found when you log into the University of Pittsburgh’s Zoom Videoconferencing landing page and click on Settings. It is under the In Meeting (Basic) category. If you switch it off, then a participant that you remove cannot rejoin the meeting.

Registration for Meetings

Scheduling a meeting that requires registration will allow you to have your participants register with their e-mail, name, other questions, and custom questions. You can also generate meeting registration reports if you want to download a list of people that registered. You can also choose to manually approve registrants before they are sent instructions on how to join your meeting.

For instructions on how to require registration for your zoom meetings, please reference this page. For more information on registration, please visit Zoom’s support page.

*Passwords

Passwords can be set at the individual meeting level or can be enabled at the user, group, or account level for all meetings. Account owners and admins can also lock password settings, to require passwords for all meetings on their account.

For instructions on how to enable passwords into your Zoom meetings, please reference this page. For more information on passwords, please visit Zoom’s support page.

*Waiting Rooms

The Waiting Room feature allows the host to control when a participant joins the meeting. As the meeting host, you can admit attendees one by one or hold all attendees in the waiting room and admit them all at once.

For general waiting room use, please visit this page. For more information on waiting rooms, please visit Zoom’s support page.

Only Authenticated Users

If you schedule a Zoom meeting through the University of Pittsburgh’s Zoom Videoconferencing page or Canvas, you have an additional option to only allow authenticated users to join if you have not already turned this setting on already. This will prompt participants to sign in with their SSO Pitt credentials to be able to join the meeting if they have not done so already.

*Audio/Video Settings

If video is not something that is necessary, consider turning off video capabilities for your participants. We also recommend to mute participants upon entry so that entering participants do not disturb the meeting if they arrive late.

DURING the Meeting:

Review Security Options

The Security Button at the bottom of your host panel allows you to get to Security features in Zoom quickly and easily. A check mark next to the option means that the feature is turned on. Click on the option to toggle it on or off.

For more information on the Security Button, please visit Zooms’ support page.

*Limit Screen Sharing

All meeting room participants can share their screen (in this way presenters can share PowerPoint slides as they talk, or an instructor can demonstrate the use of a piece of software), but the host controls who and how many people can share their screens at a given time.

For instructions on how to limit screen sharing, please reference this page. For more information on screen sharing, please visit Zoom’s support page.

*Disable Participant Annotations in Screen Share

When you share your screen in a Zoom meeting, participants can annotate on the screen. To disable this, click on the More tab and choose to disable participants annotation.

*Edit Participants’ Controls

The Participant controls in a meeting you’re hosting allow you to make sure that your meeting is run smoothly and there is good verbal and nonverbal communication between you, the host, and the participants.

For instructions on how to edit participant roles, please reference this page. For more information on manage participant roles, please visit Zoom’s support page.

You can also mute/unmute all, mute participants on entry, or even lock the meeting after it has started to not allow new participants from joining.

Chat Settings

You can determine if chat is enabled and who participants can communicate with in your chat settings.

For instructions on how to edit chat settings, please reference this page. For more information on Zoom chat settings, please visit Zoom’s support page.