ZoomBomb Protection
Zoom Bombing is a malicious prank inflicted on many teachers who are transitioning their classes to distance learning. It involves uninvited guests gaining access to a class with the intent of disrupting it. Sometimes, the disruption is relatively benign such as verbally interrupting the presenter or posting annoying messages in the group chat. Other times, however, Zoom Bomb attacks involve disturbing hate speech, and sometimes bombers can take control of the shared screen to display pornography, or images of violence.
It is critical that teachers take some simple steps to insure that their Zoom classes are protected from Zoom Bombing. Zoom provides several tools to make this possible, and we are using these tools in different ways based on how our students are connecting to Zoom meetings. Every meeting requires you to enable at least one of the first three security options below (authentication, password, or waiting room).
Authentication Required - This setting prevents people without d-e.org Zoom accounts from joining your meeting. Sometimes this settings is required on teacher accounts.
Password Required - This setting requires a password to be entered before someone can join a Zoom meeting. Sometimes this setting is required for staff who need to host Zoom meetings with people outside of D-E.
Waiting Room - This is a holding area for participants before they enter a Zoom meeting. When enabled, people wait here and can't see or communicate with any other participants.
Note that with the waiting room feature enabled, teachers will need to keep an eye on the "manage participants" list. If someone arrives late to class, she or he will remain in the waiting room until the teacher admits them. See below for how to manage participants in the waiting room.
Participant Screen Sharing off by default -- By default, only the host will be able to share his or her screen in a meeting. This can be changed during the meeting under the Security button to allow any participant to share the screen.
Manage Waiting Room
1. As the meeting host, click "manage participants"
2. Click "Admit" on the participant you want to admit, or click "Admit All."
Authentication Exceptions (click here for more details)
Zoom added an "Authenticai Exception" feature in early 2021. This is only available for scheduled (generated ID) meetings not your Personal Meeting Room (aka PMI or Personal Meeting ID.)
You can use this Exception feature to add specific email address exceptions (e.g. myname@gmail.com) to any scheduled meetings (except your PMI) so you can lock a meeting to only d-e.org accounts using the Authentication Required feature mentioned above but still let others in who do not have a d-e.org account. This is useful when hosting guest speakers. When you go to add an exception, those guests will be emailed a unique meeting link they can use to bypass the d-e.org authentication.
To add an exception, sign in at zoom.us using a web browser to edit a meetings settings, enable "Require authentication" then click Add next to Authentication Exception (pictured below).
