Avoid The ZoomBomb
How to Avoid the “ZoomBomb”
These changes to the default settings are recommended for anyone who is hosting Zoom conferences open to the public or with children attending. Changing these settings will help you keep control of your meeting and focus on your content.
Join before host
The participants could be having a party without you there to monitor. Don’t let the party start without you!
Recommendation: Turn off
Mute participants upon entry
Barking dogs and crying babies can take over your meeting unintentionally. So can the participant who is singing their favorite heavy metal song at the top of their voice.
You might also consider disallowing participants to unmute themselves. In that case participants can use the “Raise hand” feature or the chat room to indicate when they want to speak. You can manually unmute them.
Recommendation: Turn on
Private chat
The chatroom is one of the key ways to get live feedback and participation with your participants. We want to see all the communication that is happening. Disabling private chat will help tamp down any possible bullying or harassment during your meeting. They can use discord or text messages if they need a backchannel.
Recommendation: Turn off
File transfer
The ability to send files to your participants is very handy for you. Not so helpful if the participants are sending inappropriate (even unintentionally) files/gifs/images to the group. Put your files on Google Drive, Dropbox, 3C Media, etc. and give them download links.
Recommendation: Turn off
Allow host to put attendee on hold
Sometimes participants have environmental consideration that require you to step in and pause them. The participant could have someone enter the room. They could have a TV running behind them. They might have forgotten to dress appropriately…
Recommendation: Turn on
Screen sharing
Your company department meeting is a great place for colleagues to share their business work with the group. Your classroom might not be. Participants can take over the session share and put anything they would like on screen for all in attendance. You can make a participant a co-host if you would like someone else to share their screen.
Recommendation: Turn on “Host Only”
Disable desktop/screen share for users
We don’t need to see the personal photos and information of your co-host when they share. This setting will enable them to share an Application (Powerpoint, Firefox, Chrome, Powershell, etc.) only. You should consider only sharing applications yourself.
Recommendation: Turn on
Annotation
Annotation gives you the ability to “draw” over the screen. It also gives that to your participants. They can draw anything that comes to mind over your presentation, your face, or anything else.
Recommendation: Turn off
Remote control
This is a handy support feature in a 1:1 session. You don’t want participants constantly requesting remote control of your desktop during meetings.
Recommendation: Turn off
Allow removed participants to rejoin
When you kick someone out of your meeting for any reason, they shouldn’t be able to come back.
Recommendation: Turn off
Waiting room
This is perhaps the most useful feature to help control your meeting or classroom. All participants will enter the waiting room before joining the main session. This allows you to let participants in as you are ready to receive them.
Recommendation: Turn on and customize
Optional – Consider locking your meeting once everyone is in attendance.
