How to Prevent Zoombombings for Classes

Information Technology and Distributed Education have worked together to ensure that Zoom settings for the university are secure. However, while the university-wide settings are secure there are additional measures you can take to ensure your Zoom class sessions do not get disrupted.  

What is Zoombombing? 

Zoombombing is a trolling method where people use Zoom’s screen sharing, virtual background, and chat features to spread graphic or threatening messages.  

Do Not Share Your Meeting ID Publicly 

To prevent unwanted guests in your Zoom class, we recommend that you do not share your meeting publicly via social media or other public methods.  

Instead, we suggest only inviting your students via a Google Calendar invite or send them the meeting ID via email or through a Canvas message. 

Set up Meeting Passwords 

The New School requires passwords for all New School Zoom meetings. By default, all newly created meetings generate a meeting password that participants must use to join. For recurring meetings created before this policy was implemented, it is recommended to create new meetings to ensure they are password-protected.

*Please note that our New School security settings embed passwords into meeting invites so participants can join directly by clicking the meeting invite. 

You do have the ability to change the require password default setting by going to https://newschool.zoom.us/, clicking on the settings tab, and disabling Require a password when scheduling new meetings or Require a password for Personal Meeting ID (PMI) depending on your needs.  

Enable the Waiting Room Feature 

The Waiting Room feature allows the host to control when each participant joins the meeting. As the meeting host, you can admit attendees one by one, or hold all attendees in the virtual waiting room and admit them en masse. This requires more work by the host, but only allows participants to join if you specifically admit them. 

Only Allow Yourself or Co-Host to Screen Share 

By default, all New School Zoom accounts only allow hosts to share their screens. This is to prevent participants from disrupting the meeting through screen-sharing.  

To allow others in your class to screen-share, we recommend you temporarily make them a co-host of the meeting. This allows whoever you make the co-host the option of sharing their screen. You can then remove them as co-host to prevent further screen-sharing. 

How to make someone a co-host while in Zoom meeting: 

1. If the Participants panel is not visible, click Manage Participants at the bottom of the Zoom window.

   

2. Hover over the name of the participant you want to make a co-host, and click More. 

3. Click Make Co-Host. 

*You can then remove the co-host permission by once again hovering over the participant’s name and clicking “Withdraw Co-host Permission”.  

Remove a Participant from a Meeting 

If you find that you have a disruptive participant in your Zoom meeting you can remove them by following these steps.  

While in  the Zoom meeting: 

1. If the Participants panel is not visible, click Manage Participants at the bottom of the Zoom window. 

2. Hover over the name of the participant you want to remove, and click More. 

3. From the list that appears, click Remove. 

*Please remember that our New School security settings do not allow participants to rejoin a meeting from which they have been removed. 

Lock Your Meeting 

Locking your meeting means no more participants can join and you as the host or co-host will NOT see if anyone is trying to join. While this can be beneficial it does mean students who are having technical difficulties will not be able to join the meeting if you lock it before they are able to resolve their technical issues.  

However, if your meeting is being disrupted to the point that you would like to lock your meeting you can do so by following these steps.  

1. If the Participants panel is not visible, click Manage Participants at the bottom of the Zoom window. 

2. At the bottom of the Participants panel, and click More. 

3. From the list that appears, click Lock Meeting. 

To unlock the meeting following these same steps. 

Additional Settings 

There are additional settings that could be useful to adjust based on your class needs. 

• Allow removed participants to rejoin: When you do remove someone, they can’t rejoin the meeting. But you can toggle your settings to allow removed participants to rejoin, in case you remove the wrong person. 

• Put participants on hold: You can put each participant on a temporary hold, including the attendees’ video and audio connections. Click on someone’s video thumbnail and select Start Attendee On Hold to activate this feature. Click Take Off Hold in the Participants list if/when you’re ready to have them back. 

• Disable video: Hosts can turn someone’s video off. This will allow hosts to block unwanted, distracting, or inappropriate gestures on video. 

• Mute participants: Hosts can mute/unmute individual participants or all of them at once. Hosts can block unwanted, distracting, or inappropriate noise from other participants. You can also enable Mute Upon Entry in your settings to keep the noise down in large meetings. 

• Turn off file transfer: In-meeting file transfer allows people to share files through the in-meeting chat. Turn this off to keep the chat from getting unwanted content. 

• Turn off annotation: You and your attendees can doodle and mark up content together using annotations during screen share. You can disable the annotation feature in your Zoom settings to prevent people from using it. 

• Disable private chat: Zoom has in-meeting chat for everyone or participants can message each other privately. Restrict participants’ ability to chat with each another during your meeting. This prevents anyone from getting messages during the meeting. 

Change Your Global Account Zoom Settings to Meet Your Needs 

You do have the ability to change the Zoom settings on your account for any future meetings you may schedule. You can adjust the screen-sharing option, set up waiting rooms, change and adjust other settings as you deem necessary to keep your class functioning properly.  

*Please be aware that any changes you make to your global account settings will not reflect in previously scheduled meetings. You will only notice the changes in meetings created after the global change. We suggest rescheduling previous meetings to ensure they have incorporated the new settings where feasible. 

To change your settings for all future meetings, sign into newschool.zoom.us with your NetID and password, click on settings and adjust the settings where necessary. We suggest following these specific settings: 

ENABLE/TURN ON 

• Require a password when scheduling new meetings 

• A password will be generated when scheduling a meeting and participants require the password to join the meeting. The Personal Meeting ID (PMI) meetings are not included. 

• Require a password for instant meetings 

• A random password will be generated when starting an instant meeting 

• Require a password for Personal Meeting ID (PMI) 

• Require a password for Room Meeting ID (Applicable for Zoom Rooms only) 

• A password will be generated for Room Meeting ID and participants require the password to join the meeting. 

• Require password for participants joining by phone 

• A numeric password will be required for participants joining by phone if your meeting has a password. For meetings with an alphanumeric password, a numeric version will be generated. 

DISABLE/TURN OFF 

• Embed password in meeting link for one-click join 

• Meeting password will be encrypted and included in the join meeting link to allow participants to join with just one click without having to enter the password. 

• Bypass the password when joining meetings from meeting list 

• When Zoom Rooms join a scheduled meeting on its meeting list, users do not need to manually enter the meeting password 

• Annotation 

• Allow participants to use annotation tools to add information to shared screens 

• Whiteboard 

• Allow participants to share whiteboard during a meeting 

• Autosave whiteboard content when sharing is stopped 

• Remote control 

• During screen sharing, the person who is sharing can allow others to control the shared content 

• Virtual background 

• Allow users to replace their background with any selected image. Choose or upload an image in the Zoom Desktop application settings. 

Public Events 

The above suggestions are specifically for class environments. If you are hosting a public event, please reach out to Events IT via email at eventsit@newschool.edu or phone at 646.909.2756 to ensure your meeting settings are secure.