A Masterclass in Handling Zoombombing – WARNING: Strong Language

One of the hidden keys to an engaging virtual meeting is security. Security includes the challenges of securing your meeting data, especially if it is confidential or sensitive to the phenomenon of Zoombombing, which is the unwanted intrusion into a videoconference call by an individual or
group, causing disruption. There’s nothing more disengaging than having a company secret stolen or having unwanted visitors during your meeting.

Your meetings will be much more secure than most Zoom meetings if you incorporate these three practices: (1) Use a password to protect and enable access to your meeting; (2) Do not post the link on social media; and (3) Enable the “Waiting Room” feature and dedicate a person to let invited people into your meeting.

Look up guides and articles on the best security practices for your virtual meeting platform. Many of your settings may be set by your company as part of their IT security policies. If features such as Turn Screen Sharing Off or the Waiting Room are not available, ask your IT department if
they can be turned on for your meeting. If the content of your meeting is confidential and requires a high level of security, you should research all of the security features available for the platform you are using. Then, use any and all security features possible!

Here is an example of my first Zoombomber. Unfortunately, they were able to share their screen and audio with my meeting attendees. I quickly regained control by taking back control of the shared screen and removing the user. The best way to continue the meeting after regaining control was to celebrate that we had defended a zoombomber.

To help facilitators avoid this issue, I created a master class in Zoombombing. In this class, we used a variety of techniques, including disabling the “share screen” feature.

However, we let in all of the attendees in the waiting room at once. This is not recommended! We fended off over a dozen Zoombombers. Warning: strong language is in this video.

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