13 Ways to Secure Your Zoom Meetings You Need to Know

Using the online meeting software Zoom is a great way to stay in touch with colleagues, friends, and family, organize online meetings, and online classes. However, as a Zoom user, can you trust Zoom with your private conversations? Furthermore, how can you protect and keep your conversations safe from unwanted interference?

Zoom account security tips, detailed Zoom meeting security

Article Table of Contents:
1. Do not share Zoom meeting information on social media.
2. Use a strong password for your Zoom meeting.
3. Enable waiting room feature.
4. Lock the meeting.
5. Use automatically generated meeting IDs instead of personal IDs.
6. Enable E2E encryption.
7. Disable private chat feature.
8. Limit screen sharing.
9. Pause participant activities.
10. Continuously update to the latest version of Zoom.
11. Disable the option for removed participants to rejoin.
12. Disable meeting recording feature.
13. End the meeting as an admin.

Securing Zoom Meetings and What You Need to Know

1. Do not share Zoom meeting information on social media

At the end of March 2020, many members of the UK government began social distancing at home. Prime Minister Boris Johnson held the first 'Digital Cabinet' meeting using Zoom. He then tweeted a screenshot of the Zoom meeting with the full Zoom meeting ID. Of course, hundreds of people tried to access the Zoom meeting but were unsuccessful because the meeting was protected by a secure password.

This incident illustrates what can happen if you post identifying information on social media. The result is that unscrupulous individuals will abuse it.

2. Use a strong password for your Zoom meeting

The Zoom meeting password consists of 1 - 10 characters. Each participant must enter the password before joining the meeting. This prevents intruders and Zoom-bombing. By default, Zoom creates a 6-character password for each meeting. However, you can add characters or switch to a stronger password for your personal meeting room by following the instructions below:

Step 1: Go to the zoom.us website and log in to your Zoom account.
Step 2: Click on My Account in the top right corner of the screen.

Step 3: Select Meetings under Personal on the left side of the screen and switch to the Personal Room tab.

Step 4: To change your personal room password, click on the Edit button.

Step 5: Then, enter a new password consisting of 1 to 10 characters that are numbers, letters (uppercase or lowercase), or a combination of numbers and letters in the Passcode section under Security.

Step 6: Finally, click the Save button to apply the changes.

To change the Zoom meeting password for iOS and Android, open the Zoom app and select Schedule, tap on Passcode, and enter a new password. Finally, click the Save button in the top right corner of the screen to apply the changes.

3. Enable Waiting Room

The Waiting Room feature helps you control who joins your meeting. When enabled, participants have to wait until the host allows them into the Zoom meeting room. For teachers, the Waiting Room can be used as a place to take attendance and remind students of what they need before the class starts.

To enable the Waiting Room feature by default for all your future meetings, open Zoom.us in a web browser and log in to your Zoom account. Then, follow these steps:

Step 1: Click on My Account in the top right corner of the screen and select Settings under Personal on the left-hand side.

Step 2: Next, choose the Meeting tab. Under Security, activate the Waiting Room feature.

Alternatively, simply click on the Security option in the toolbar at the bottom of the Zoom meeting screen in the Zoom software for PC and select Enable Waiting Room.

4. Lock the Meeting

Once all the invited participants have joined the meeting, you can lock the meeting to prevent anyone else from joining. This is another useful way to prevent Zoom-bombing, uninvited guests. Here's how you do it:

Step 1: In the Zoom meeting, click on the Participants option in the toolbar at the bottom of the meeting screen.

Step 2: A screen showing the list of meeting participants will appear on the right-hand side. Here, click on the three-dot icon in the bottom right corner of the screen and select Lock Meeting.

Another way to activate this feature is in the Zoom meeting on PC, click on the Security option in the toolbar at the bottom of the meeting screen and select Lock Meeting.

5. Use automatically generated meeting IDs instead of personal IDs

Avoid using personal meeting IDs for group meetings, training, or classes. If someone you don't know gets your personal meeting ID, they can join the meeting without prior notice. It's best to use automatically generated meeting IDs, such as by scheduling a meeting, whether it's a one-time or recurring meeting. You can schedule a Zoom meeting with an automatically generated ID through the Zoom.us website or the Zoom software for PC. Here's how:

- Log in to your Zoom account on the Zoom.us website, then click on My Account in the top right corner of the screen. In the Upcoming tab of the Meetings section, click on Schedule a meeting and fill in the meeting details such as topic, description, and time. In the Meeting ID section, check the Generate Automatically option. Finally, click Save.

- In the Zoom software for PC, click on the Schedule option and enter the meeting details as above. Then, in the Meeting ID section, check the Generate Automatically option. Finally, click Save.

6. Enable E2E Encryption

You can enable end-to-end encryption (E2E) to add an extra layer of protection to your meetings. To enable E2E encryption in Zoom security settings, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open Zoom.us in your web browser and log in to your Zoom account.
Step 2: Click on My Account in the top right corner of the screen.
Step 3: Select Settings in the left-hand menu under Personal.
Step 4: In the Security section of the Meeting tab, enable the Allow use of end-to-end encryption option.

Note: When you enable E2E encryption, some Zoom features will be disabled, including: Join before host, cloud recording, live streaming, live transcription, breakout rooms, polling, meeting reactions, private chat.

7. Disable Private Chat

To keep everyone focused during the meeting, you can disable the private chat feature. This is especially helpful for teachers to keep students focused on the class and less distracted. In the Zoom meeting screen on PC, click on Chat. Then, in the chat window, click on the three-dot icon in the bottom right corner of the screen and choose an option. If you don't want participants to chat with anyone, select No one. If you want participants to chat with the host only, select Host only.

8. Limit Screen Sharing

Screen sharing is one of the most convenient features Zoom offers. But what if someone starts sharing their screen and displays inappropriate content? To prevent unwanted situations, you can limit screen sharing options.

After the meeting starts, click on the arrow icon next to the Share Screen option and choose Advanced Sharing Options.

Here, you can choose one screen sharer at a time and only the meeting host can share the screen.

9. Pause Participant Activities

Zoom has introduced a simple security feature that allows the host to pause all participant activities in the meeting. This feature is extremely useful when a stranger gains access to the meeting and disrupts it with inappropriate behavior, or in cases where a teacher needs to pause all activities because a student is causing disruption in the online class on Zoom. To use this feature, do the following:

Step 1: In your Zoom meeting or class, click on Security and choose Suspend Participant Activities.

Step 2: Uncheck Report Zoom if you do not want to report this issue to Zoom and only click Suspend when you want to stop all activities in Zoom.

Afterward, the meeting will be locked, and features including audio, screen sharing, chat, video, and renaming will be disabled. The Zoom meeting/class will be suspended until the host/teacher allows members/students to resume activities by selecting individual options from the Security list.

10. Keep Zoom Up-to-Date

11. Disable Option to Allow Removed Participants to Rejoin

By default, when you remove a participant from a meeting, that person cannot rejoin the meeting in the current session. However, for future meetings, they can still rejoin using their email address. To limit this, you can enable the feature to disable rejoining for removed participants. Here's how:

Step 1: Log in to Zoom us with your username and password. Click Here for quick access.

Step 2: On the Zoom us homepage, click on 'My Account'

Step 3: Then, under 'personal', select 'settings' and then choose 'in meeting (basic)'

Step 4: Drag the mouse, uncheck the 'allow removed participants to rejoin' feature

12. Disable Meeting Recording Feature

If your meeting contains sensitive information that needs to be secure during the meeting, discussion, you can enable the meeting recording feature from members. Specifically as follows:

Step 1: Practice the steps from 1 to 3 in section 11

Step 2: Drag the mouse, uncheck the 'chat' feature. This will automatically disable all chat functions.

The screen displays the message 'turn off chat', you press 'turn off' to disable this feature.

Step 3: Next, switch to the 'Record' tab and uncheck the 'local recording' feature and then press 'save'.

The screen displays the message 'turn off local recording', you press 'turn off' to disable this feature.

Furthermore, you can also activate features like 'Request host confirmation before starting recording' to control the recording of the meeting by members. Moreover, you can adjust settings to receive notifications each time recording starts. By activating this setting, a notification will be sent to all participants, informing them that the meeting is being recorded.

13. End the meeting as an admin

Additionally, if there is any suspicion from a stranger in the meeting, to secure information, you can end the meeting directly by clicking on the 'End Meeting' button in the lower right corner of the screen.

You can also share this article with friends, family, teachers, and colleagues to help them understand why you are not volunteering to use Zoom and are not willing to disclose personal information while using this platform. Additionally, you can refer to How to block intruders on Zoom when you are having an online meeting or teaching.