Secure your Zoom Meetings

From Mike Williams, Service Owner, Video and Conferencing Service, University of Minnesota

In light of the increased use of Zoom during the COVID-19 health crisis, I wanted to share tips for hosting a more secure Zoom meeting. The University of Minnesota’s default settings for Zoom enable easy collaboration and communication for the University community and its partners. However, some Zoom sessions, such as course lectures, require more restrictive controls. As a meeting host, you can change default settings before and/or during a meeting.

Access Security Settings

On April 8, Zoom released a new way to access existing security settings during a meeting. After updating your Zoom client, a shield icon, labeled Security will appear in the dock at the bottom of the meeting screen when you are the host or co-host (participants will not have access to this feature).

Note: The Security icon is located where the Invite icon used to be. Now, to invite participants during a meeting, click Participants. The invite button can be found at the bottom of the Participants pane.

Instructions: Securing Your Zoom Meeting

Choose how you would like to learn about Security settings; read instructions or watch a short video demonstration.

• Read instructions on how to Secure Your Zoom Meeting before it occurs, while you are meeting, and after it is over.
  OR
• Watch a brief demonstration of In-Meeting Tools to Secure your Zoom Meetings (3:14).

Address Disruptions 

As a result of the increased use of Zoom meetings globally, they have become a target for meeting hijackers. In many cases, these bad actors seek to cause disruption by posting or sharing inappropriate comments, images, or videos. In the event that an unwanted guest joins your Zoom meeting, you can take immediate action:

• Lock your meeting. The Zoom host settings allow the host or co-host to lock the meeting after all the expected participants have joined. Click the Security icon and select Lock meeting. Important Note! If one of your participants leaves the meeting (e.g., their internet connection fails) after you have locked the meeting, they will not be able to rejoin unless you unlock the meeting.
• Remove a participant or put on hold. If someone is disrupting your meeting, remove them from the session. Click on the Participant icon. From the participant pane, hover over the name of the disruptive participant. When the menu appears, select Remove. Another option is to put them on hold, during which time the attendee cannot see, hear, or share anything.
• Restrict screen sharing. Click the Security icon to uncheck screen sharing permissions. 
• Disable chat. Click the Security icon and click the checkmark next to chat to disable participants’ ability to use the chat function. 

More Help

Instructors and academic support professionals are encouraged to visit the University's Keep Teaching site, which is updated frequently with help and support information like this based on requests from the University community. Additionally, if you are frequent Zoom users, you may want to bookmark the Zoom Help Center for help documentation.