What Is Zoom Bombing?

Zoom bombing, or Zoombombing, occurs when an uninvited individual gains access to your Zoom meeting. They join the Zoom session with the intent to disrupt the meeting. Luckily, Zoom bombing can be prevented by enabling Zoom's privacy settings.

How to Prevent Zoom Bombing

1. Create a password for your Zoom meeting

When you schedule a new meeting, under the Password section, click the checkbox next to Require meeting password. This allows you to type in a strong password that you can share with meeting participants. Participants will be asked to enter the password to join the meeting. Those who don't have the password won't be able to join your meeting.

2. Use the waiting room feature

The waiting room feature allows the meeting host to determine when participants can enter the meeting. The meeting host can admit attendees one by one or all at once. When you're signed into Zoom, click the Schedule button to create a new meeting. Click on Advanced Options, check the box next to Enable Waiting Room.

3. Limit who can share their screen

Once your meeting has started, click the up arrow next to Share Screen, then click Advanced sharing options. Under Who can share? Select the only Host to make sure the meeting host is the only participant who can share their screen. 

4. Lock the meeting

When you're in your meeting, click Manage Participants in the Zoom toolbar. You should see your meeting participants listed on the right-hand side of the screen. In the bottom right-hand corner, click the More button and select Lock Meeting. This prevents any new participants from joining the meeting, even if they have the meeting password.

Tips for Using Zoom

1. Customize your preferences

In your Zoom app, you can set the preferences that will apply to every Zoom Meeting you attend. You can therefore customize your zoom preferences.

2. Record important Zoom meetings

If you're holding a Zoom meeting that involves multiple cross-functional team members, or if you're kicking off a long-term project, or even if one or two members of your team are out of the office, it's a good practice to record those meetings for future reference. You can record meetings to your device or to the Zoom cloud for later reviewing to make sure everyone is on the same page.

How to Record a Zoom Meeting

• Log into Zoom
• Start your meeting as the host by clicking Meetings. Then, under Upcoming, select the meeting you want to start and click the blue Start button.
• Click the Record button on the right-hand side of the Zoom toolbar.
• Select either Record on this Computer or Record to the Cloud to begin recording.
• To stop recording, click Pause/Stop Recording or End Meeting.

3. Sync Zoom with Slack

If your team uses Slack to communicate in real time, your system administrator can integrate Zoom and Slack for easy video conferencing on the fly. If you or a team member are working remotely and are trying to discuss a complicated concept via text alone, it might be a challenge. Instead of going through booking a Zoom meeting on your calendar, you can type "/zoom" into Slack, and a meeting link will appear directly in your Slack conversation for you and your teammate to join.

4. Mute yourself when you're not speaking

This is a basic rule of video conferencing etiquette, but it bears repeating, no matter which software you use. Mute yourself when you're not talking to cut down on distracting background noise. In your preferences, you can set yourself to be automatically muted when you join a meeting. When you're ready to un-mute yourself, you can save yourself a click by pressing and holding the space key if you need to chime in for a brief second.

5. Pair Zoom with the right video conferencing camera

Zoom is probably such a popular video conferencing software option because it's so easy to use: Once you're set up, you only need a few clicks to start talking to your colleagues. To get a great experience for co-located and remote Zoom meeting participants, choose a video conferencing camera for your Zoom Room that will make sure meeting attendees feel included and a part of a conversation. Our video conferencing comparison guide can help you figure out which camera might be the best option for your team.

I hope that, you can have a great time using Zoom for your meetings.