Given higher education’s sudden shift to remote teaching and learning, many have navigated Zoom as an alternative classroom. Some security concerns have emerged, including “Zoombombing” — hackers finding ways to disrupt Zoom class sessions. Learn how to safeguard your classroom as well as what not to do to keep your account and remote classroom secure.
How you can safeguard your Zoom class session:
- Require students to log in to their Northwestern Zoom account BEFORE they access the class Zoom session. This practice authenticates students, meaning they must have an active Northwestern net ID and password to access the Zoom class.
- Use “Waiting room” option for your account. After you have started the class, the host must admit every participant that tries to access the Zoom session. To set up “Waiting room,” log in to Zoom, then:
- Go to Settings, in left-side vertical menu.
- Within vertical menu, second from left, go to In Meeting (Advanced).
- Scroll down to “Waiting room.” Toggle right button so it appears blue. Setting is automatically saved.
- Before class begins, have a class roster. This ensures you only let in students you recognize.
- As host, you have the power to turn off participants’ video and mute participants.
- Prevent participants from screen sharing during the session.
- Click/tap the arrow next to Share Screen and then Advanced Sharing Options.
- Under “Who can share?” choose “Only Host” and close the window.
- Lock Meeting. After you confirm everyone has “arrived” to class, you can lock the meeting to anyone else who may try to enter:
- Click/tap Participants at the bottom of your Zoom window.
- A pop-up menu will appear along right edge of Zoom window.
- At the bottom right of this window, click/tap “More.”
- From this drop-down, click/tap “Lock Meeting.” Click/tap to confirm that no new attendees will be able to access the meeting once locked.
What NOT to do:
- Share your Zoom Personal Meeting Room, or any Zoom link, on any social media accounts or other public platforms.
- Use your Zoom Personal Meeting Room to host public events.
Read more about the prevention of Zoombombing in Zoom Blog’s “How to Keep the Party Crashers from Crashing Your Zoom Event,” published March 20, 2020.