Last updated on 09-Apr-2020
Working from home has increased the use of Zoom for meetings. With increased use comes increased scrutiny. As a result bugs within Zoom have been discovered and and people have started taking advatage of those bugs. Zoom have announced a freeze on all new features for the moment and strictly focus on correcting the security issues.
In effort to help you stay safe while continuing to use Zoom here are a few resources you might find helpful.
Both the University of Alabama IT and University of Alabama at Birmingham IT groups have released sites describing in detail how to better protect yourself from "ZoomBombing".
- UAB IT's instructions: go.uab.edu/zoomsecurity
- UA IT's instructions: https://cit.ua.edu/technologies/zoom/zoombombing/
- UAB eLearning and Professional Studies guidance: https://www.uab.edu/elearning/academic-technologies/zoom
The following settings are what we are recommending as your default settings. You can manage this at https://uab.zoom.us/profile/setting. A blue button (toggled to the right) means the setting is on. A gray button (toggled to the left) means it is off.
- Host video – Off
- Participants video – Off
- Audio Type – Telephone and Computer Audio
- Join before host – Off
- User Personal Meeting ID (PMI) when scheduling a meeting – Off
- Only authenticated users can join meeting – Off (students may not be authenticated users)
- Require a password when scheduling new meetings – On
- Mute participants upon entry – On
- Private chat – Off
- Auto saving chats – On
- File transfer – Off
- Allow host to put attendee on hold – On
- Screen sharing – Who can share? Host only
- Disable desktop/screenshare for users – On
- Annotation – Off
- Whiteboard – Off
- Remote control – Off
- Virtual background – Off
- Identify guest participants in the meeting – On
- Auto-answer group in chat – Off
- Attention tracking – On
- Waiting room – (for small classes) On
- Allow live streaming meetings – Off
Zoom's official posts regarding the latest news surrounding the application, its security, and what they are doing to make it better:
- A Message to Our Users – 01 April 2020
- The Facts Around Zoom and Encryption for Meetings/Webinars – 01 April 2020
- How to Keep Uninvited Guests Out of Your Zoom Event – 20 March 2020
- Zoom Product Updates: New Security Toolbar Icon for Hosts, Meeting ID No Longer Displayed – 08 April 2020
Release history of the Zoom applications in case you want to verify which version you have: