It is a best practice to refrain from directly sharing Zoom meeting information on social media channels. We have had reports of non-Missouri State affiliated participants joining open meetings with the intent to be disruptive and or harassing. However, we understand that groups may want to meet with prospective students using these channels, so we have outlined some best practice steps if you need to make Zoom meeting information available to an open group.
Please Note: These suggestions are meant to minimize risk, but please be aware that anytime you are sharing a meeting link on social media or open web platforms, you risk having individuals join who are not affiliated with your content and wish to be disruptive. If you experience such a "Zoombombing" event, please contact Information Security (InformationSecurity@MissouriState.edu) to report the problem as soon as possible.
You can use the following settings when scheduling your meeting for advanced security.
- Don't use Personal Meeting ID for Public Meetings
Make sure that you are always choosing to generate a random meeting ID for meetings that you need to make available to the public. This is essential to keep other meetings scheduled under your personal ID from being interrupted.
- Require Participants to Register
If you require registration, you can ask attendees to provide an email address where you can send the meeting information. That way, you won't need to make the meeting information itself public, and you'll also have a list of emails that you can use to contact attendees in case of changes. You can learn more about setting up registration for a meeting in the Zoom Help Center.
- Turn on the Waiting Room
The Waiting Room feature allows you to hold attendees until you're ready to admit them to the meeting. You can choose to admit participants individually, or you can admit them all at once. That way, you don't have participants dropping in to your meeting without being admitted. While this won't prevent someone from being disruptive, it will keep them from returning to the meeting once you have ejected them. You can learn more about the waiting room in the Zoom Security Settings article.
- Restrict Available Tools
Screen Sharing: make sure screen sharing is limited to the host so that participants cannot share their screen without being granted that permission (and only allow screen sharing for participants that you know directly).
Chat: Restrict in-meeting chat so that participants cannot message one another directly. This prevents a participant from harassing another user without others viewing the messages.
Once your meeting is up and running, you want to be sure you know how to deal with potential disruptions and control the flow of the meeting.
- Mute Participants
You may wish to mute all participants in order to ensure that there are no disruptions or background noises interfering with the presentation. Click the Participants button on the control bar to display the participants list. You can mute individual participants or choose Mute All.
You can control additional mute settings using the More menu at the bottom of the participants menu.
- Remove a Participant
You may need to remove a problematic participant. To remove a participant, open the participants list, click More, then click Remove.
You will need to confirm that you wish to remove the participant. Be sure you have the correct participant as they will not be able to rejoin.
- Make Someone a Co-Host
While it is not required, you may wish to assign a co-host to help manage participants, particularly for larger events. During the meeting, from the participants list, click more next to your co-host, then click Make Co-Host. The co-host has all the same privileges to manage participants as the host.
References
Zoom Security Settings
Zoom Guide to Securing Meetings
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