Zoom Privacy and Security

For information regarding using Zoom, see our Zoom Web Conferecing guide.

This guide covers:

• Best practices
• Trent enhanced security settings
• Settings when scheduling a meeting
• Settings in the meeting as the host
• Account settings
• Preventing "Zoom bombings"

Best practices

• Familiarize yourself with how to prevent "Zoom bombings".
• Only post meeting IDs and join information on secure platforms (for example: Blackboard, Microsoft Teams, or e-mail).
• Schedule each meeting; avoid using Personal Meeting IDs (PMI).
• For large meetings with external participants, require participants to register and only share the registration link.
• The host should schedule and join every meeting.
• Disable participant screen sharing and enable the waiting room. The host can assign co-hosts to allow others to temporarily share their screens.
• Enable as many of the settings listed below as is possible and practical.

Trent enhanced security settings

• Require meeting password is enabled for all Trent accounts to prevent random people from joining without the password.
  
• Auto saving chats is disabled by default.
• Identify guest participants in the meeting is enabled. All guests will show in the participants list with an orange background behind their names.
• Blur snapshot on iOS task switcher is enabled to hide potentially sensitive information from the snapshot of the Zoom main window.
• Multiple audio notifications of recorded meeting is enabled. These messages play each time the recording starts or restarts, informing participants that the meeting is being recorded.
• Mask phone number in the participant list is enabled. Phone numbers of users will be masked in the participant list, for example: 888****666.
• File transfer is disabled.

Settings when scheduling a meeting

• To make your Zoom meeting more secure when scheduling your meeting:
  • Under the Video section, select Participant: Off for participants to join with their camera video off.
    
  • Under the Meeting Options section, select Mute participants on entry to automatically mute joining participants. Participants can still manually unmute their microphones, although this ability can be disabled once the meeting has started.
  • Under the Meeting Options section, select Enable waiting room to prevent participants from automatically entering the meeting. Each participant would need to be manually allowed into the Zoom meeting by the host.
    

Settings in the meeting as the host

• Once you have started the meeting as the host, you can set the following additional security options:
  • To prevent participants from screen sharing, hover over the Zoom window and select the Security button, then under Allow participants to, ensure Share Screen is not selected.
  • After restricting screen sharing above, to allow another participant to share their screen, temporarily assign the user as a co-host. Hover over the Zoom window and select Manage participants, hover over the participant's name and select More, then select Make co-host.
    
  • To prevent participants from unmuting their microphone, hover over the Zoom window and select the Security button, then under Allow participants to, ensure Unmute Themselves is not selected. As the host, you can still manually allow a participant to unmute themselves if they raise their hand.
  • Once all participants have joined, the host can lock the meeting to prevent others from joining. Hover over the Zoom window and select the Security button, then select Lock Meeting.
    
     
  • To control annotations if you started the shared screen or whiteboard, select More in the screen share controls for these annotation settings:
    • Allow/Disable participants annotation: Allow or prevent the participants from annotating on your shared screen.
    • Show/Hide Names of Annotators: Show or hide the participants' name when they are annotating. If set to show, the participant's name will briefly display beside their annotation.
  • To stop someone from sharing their camera, hover over the Zoom window and select Manage participants, hover over the participant's name and select More, then select Stop video. This also prevents the participant from starting their video again until you allow them.

Account settings

• Log in to your Trent Zoom account, select Settings from the left menu, and adjust the following settings as necessary:
  • To always have participants join with camera video off, under the Schedule Meeting section, toggle Participants video off.
  • To always mute participants on entry, under the Schedule Meeting section, toggle Mute participants upon entry on.
  • To disable participant screen sharing for all of your meetings, under Screen Sharing in the In Meeting (Basic) section, select Host Only under Who can share?
  • To always enable the waiting room, under the In Meeting (Advanced) section, toggle Waiting room on.

Preventing "Zoom bombings"

You may have heard of a practice called Zoom bombing. To prevent Zoom bombings, please keep the following things in mind when hosting public events:

• Avoid sharing meeting links on social media or public outlets. When you share your meeting link on social media or other public forums, that makes your event extremely public. Anyone with the link could join your meeting.
• Avoid using Personal Meeting IDs (PMI) to host public events. Your PMI is a persistent meeting room and people can pop in and out all the time.
• Manage screen sharing
  • To prevent random people from taking over sharing, restrict sharing to the host. You can change this setting in a meeting, too.
  • To enable others to share screen, you can promote them to a co-host.
• Manage the chat
  • Consider restricting or disabling the chat function during a lecture.
• Manage annotations
  • Annotations by participants can be disabled or the annotator's name can be displayed.
• Manage participants
  • Lock the meeting once everyone has joined. By locking the meeting after the meeting has started, no new participants can join.
  • Remove unwanted or disruptive participants. From Manage Participants, hover over a participant's name, select More, then Remove.
  • Have participants join with camera video off.
  • Turn off a disruptive participant's camera.
  • Mute participants' audio upon entry and prevent participants from unmuting themselves.
  • Introduce a waiting room.
    • One of the best ways to use Zoom for public events is to enable the waiting room feature to keep unwanted guests out. Just like it sounds, the waiting room is a virtual staging area that stops participants from entering until the host allows them into the meeting.
    • Meeting hosts can customize waiting room settings for additional control, and you can even personalize the message people see when they hit the waiting room so that they know they are in the right spot. This message is also a great spot to post any rules or guidelines for your event.
• Additional Best Practices for Securing Your Virtual Classroom from Zoom.