Prevent Unauthorized Access and Interruptions to Zoom Meetings

There are a number of safe guards you can put in place to mitigate unauthorized access and interruptions to your Zoom meetings (commonly referred to as Zoombombing). These safe guards are especially important for persistent meeting IDs (e.g., recurring meetings, Personal Meeting ID).

Before a Meeting

Require a meeting password

One of the simplest ways to prevent unauthorized access is to add a password to your meeting. This approach balances ease of access for legitimate participants while preventing access for those without a password. Consider a numerical password to allow participants dialing in via phone or video conference hardware. See: Meeting and Webinar passwords

See: Managing participants in a meeting

Disable Join Before Host

Join Before Host allows participants to join the meeting before the host. See: Join Before Host

Enable Waiting Room

The Waiting Room allows the host to selectively admit participants. See: Waiting Room

During a Meeting

The Security Button

Click the Security button to:

• Lock the meeting (prevent anyone else from joining)
• Enable the Waiting Room
• Hide profile pictures
• Enable/disable screen-sharing for participants
• Enable/disable chat
• Allow participants to rename themselves
• Allow participants to unmute themselves
• Allow participants to start their video
• Remove a Participant
• Suspend all participant activity (video and audio is turned off, screen sharing is stopped, chat is disabled and meeting is locked)

Disable Annotations on Shared Content

1. During screen sharing, click More
2. Click Disable Annotation for Others

Additional Information

For additional information and a video demonstration of these features, see:

• Best Practices for Securing your Virtual Classroom  
• How to Keep the Party Crashers from Crashing your Zoom Event