School of Engineering

Securing Zoom Sessions

Updated on March 26, 2020

Dear Tufts Faculty and Staff,

In the last two weeks, Zoom has become an essential tool for continuity in teaching our students remotely and conducting university business.

With this increased use of Zoom across Higher Education, Industry, and the world, we are hearing about a number of people (bad actors) beginning to “Zoombomb” meetings – attending as an uninvited participant and disrupting classes and meetings. Zoom – as a tool – is not vulnerable or unsafe – nor does it impact Tufts’ systems in an insecure manner. However, we are learning of a small number of Tufts classes that have been impacted by this and want to help minimize future incidents.

To ensure your Zoom meetings are safe and secure from unwanted attendees – known as “Zoombombers” –TTS recommends the following:

3 simple, non-disruptive precautions to setting up safe and secure Zoom meetings:

  1. Disallow removed participants from entering. This is the default setting for all Tufts users, but please double-check your individual settings.
  2. Disable Join Before Host setting. This requires students to wait for the host to arrive before the meeting starts.*
  3. Lock the Meeting. Once all students have joined or 10 mins into the class, set (Participants > Lock Meeting), to prevent any new participants from joining the meeting while in-progress.

Tips for Dealing with “Zoombombing” while hosting a meeting:

What to do

How to enable it

Ensure you enter as the Host

Start the meeting via tufts.zoom.us, the Zoom app, or your Canvas Zoom page

Don’t share meeting links on public sites
  • Don’t share meeting links on public or social media sites.
  • Ask participants not to share meeting links on public or social media sites.

Mute all participants
  • Mac: Command(⌘)+Control+M

       Windows: ALT+M

  • A popup appears with a checkbox when the host Mutes All. Unchecking the checkbox disallows participants from unmuting themselves. 

Remove a participant

Participant > More > Remove

Disable participant screen sharing

Share > Advanced Sharing Options > Host Only

Disable user video

Participants > More > Stop Video

Disable Chat in Zoom

Chat > Allow participants to chat with > No one

Require a meeting password
  • Enabling this function, will require participants to use a unique password for each meeting to access the Zoom meeting.
  • Zoom provides a link to invited participants that contains the password, or you can send via email or in Canvas.

Please see the NEW document, “How to Prevent Zoombombing” for a comprehensive list of important settings and techniques for running safe, secure, and successful Zoom meetings.

If you have questions about using Zoom for teaching online, please contact the TTS Educational Technology team. For general technology questions related to working remotely, please contact the 24/7 TTS Service Desk.

Best,
TTS Communications

For IT support, contact the TTS Service Desk at 617-627-3376 or it@tufts.edu
TTS Website: http://it.tufts.edu
TTS provides a variety of tools to optimize online experiences: Keep Teaching (for faculty); Learning Remotely (for students); and Working Remotely (for staff).