Because the concept of Zoom Bombing is predicated on uninvited and/or unwanted attendees gaining access to meetings in order to cause problems, this document is meant to provide best practices on making sure that only the attendees that you want in your meeting get there. These are by no means the only methods of identifying potentially problematic attendees, they are merely a starting point.
This document was written with the assumption that the steps addressed in Safely starting a Zoom session in the age of Zoom Bombing (CLICK HERE) have already been completed.
There are indications that invitation emails for meetings and classes are being distributed to individuals outside of the intended recipient list. Operating under the assumption that only people that the host invites to attend are reaching the room is no longer a safe thought. An additional layer of security must be employed to prevent Zoom Bombing from disrupting sessions. The next level of security is dependent on the assumption that the 3 key points covered in the Scheduling a Secure Meeting - Zoom (CLICK HERE) and Safely starting a Zoom session in the age of Zoom Bombing (CLICK HERE) documents were followed.
-Assumption 1 - When Scheduling the Meeting (CLICK HERE), DISABLE Join Before Host. This will automatically put attendees on hold until the Host of the meeting signs in. If Join Before Host is left Enabled, all attendees are placed in the meeting room and are left vulnerable to the actions of all other attendees until the Host has joined.
-Assumption 2 - When Scheduling the Meeting, ENABLE the Waiting Room for the session (CLICK HERE). This will put all would be attendees of a session into an individual space where they wait to be allowed into the meeting by the Host.
-Assumption 3 - The Host has started session following safety recommendations (CLICK HERE).
Your Options:
- You can leave would be attendees in the waiting room.
- You can sent a chat message with everyone in the waiting room.
- You can remove questionable account names without even interacting with them.
- Zoom does permit all attendees that are in the Waiting Room to be allowed into the meeting in one action. This is NOT ADVISED. It is acknowledged that the host personally checking all attendees in the Waiting Room will take time and depending on the size of the session's attendance list could prove problematic. But some Zoom Bombers begin their disruptive/offensive actions the moment that they are in the room.
For those attendees that that are having computer or network issues that need to connect by telephone, it should be made known that the telephone number that they are calling from will be visible to all other attendees. This is a privacy issue for some, but it could be used to authenticate an attendee is who they claim to be. The attendee should contact the host via email and let them know the phone number that they will be calling from.