Zoom Meeting Security Best Practices

Overview/Introduction

This article provides guidelines for Zoom Meeting security settings.

Details

Generate a new Zoom Meeting ID for all non-reoccurring events and Enable Passcode protection.  For more security, enable the waiting room to monitor and individually allow participants to enter the Zoom Meeting.

Emails that include Zoom links or posts in Canvas are safe ways to share Zoom Meeting links; please inform recipients that the Zoom Meeting links are intended only for them and should not be shared or posted on web or social media sites.

For virtual event information on the College calendar, include a link to register for the Zoom Meeting and direct social media posts to the event information on the college website. We strongly recommend not posting Zoom Meeting links on the college website or in social media.

Avoid hosting large meetings or "public" events using your Zoom Personal Meeting ID (PMI).

Your PMI is a virtual meeting room permanently reserved for you that you can access only with your (PMI) or personal link. Your Personal Meeting Room is ideal for use with people you meet with regularly. However, because it is always accessible with the same Meeting ID and personal link, it should not be used for large meetings or meetings with people you do not meet with regularly. Once a participant has the link to your PMI, they can join it at any time the meeting is in use, unless you lock the meeting or use the Waiting Room feature to admit participants individually.

If a virtual event is of a sensitive nature and a waiting room is not a reasonable or reliable option to monitor attendance, increased effort is warranted to make sure the Zoom meeting is a “safe space” for participants.

Additional measures to increase security can involve one or more of the following:

1. Pre-Registration (to receive the meeting link)

If an event requires registration in advance to get the meeting link emailed, this step is usually enough to deter unwelcome participants.

2. Ursinus Authentication to join

Enable the “authentication to join” setting. Turning this on will allow only people who are logged into an Ursinus Zoom account to join the meeting. With this option, be aware that Ursinus students, faculty, and staff who log into Zoom with a personal account will receive a “this meeting is for authorized users only” message and will be unable to join the meeting.

3. Converting a Zoom Meeting to a Zoom Webinar

Zoom Webinars are very resilient to unwelcome participants.

Attendees cannot talk, and Webinar chat can be disabled.

Please reach out to Tech Support for Zoom Webinar requests.

In the event of a disruptive participant, you can Remove them from a Zoom Meeting:

1. Hover over the disruptive participant’s name in the participant list and click on “More”
2. Select “Report” and/or “Remove” on the participant that you want to eject from the meeting.

We want to do all we can to ensure we have safe virtual spaces for our college community and would appreciate your help in these efforts.

FAQs

Zoom at Ursinus

See Also

Best Practices for Securing Your Zoom Meetings

How to Schedule Zoom Meetings