(Reference: https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2019/12/04/hosts-admins-secure-zoom-meeting-experience/ and https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/20/keep-uninvited-guests-out-of-your-zoom-event/ on “How to Keep Uninvited Guests Out of Your Zoom Event”)
Before the meeting
- Password-Protected Meetings
Passwords can be set for newly scheduled meetings, instant meetings, personal meeting rooms, already scheduled meetings, and for participants joining by phone. This password is automatically generated in the calendar invitation. If your participants join a meeting by clicking a link, no password is required. However, if they manually enter a Meeting ID to join, they will be prompted by default to enter a password.
When scheduling a meeting, hosts have the option to allow or not allow attendees to join the meeting before the host. Participants will see a pop-up dialog that says, “The meeting is waiting for the host to join,” which provides additional control and security for meetings, especially in personal meeting rooms.
This Zoom platform feature gives the meeting host the freedom to control when a participant joins the meeting, and also allows them to create custom settings that give further control over which participants join the meeting and when.
Meeting hosts can customize Waiting Room settings for additional control, and you can even personalize the message people see when they hit the Waiting Room so they know they’re in the right spot. This message is really a great spot to post any rules/guidelines for your event, like who it’s intended for.
Only Signed-In Users Can Join + Specified Domains
Zoom admins have the option to restrict meeting participants to users who are signed in to Zoom. Admins can also restrict participation even further, to those who are signed in from a specific set of email address domains. If this option is enabled, only users who are signed in to their Zoom client can join the meeting.
If someone tries to join your event and isn’t logged into Zoom with the email they were invited through, they will receive this message:
During the meeting
- Lock Meeting — This feature allows the host and co-host to prevent anyone else from joining the meeting, even if they have the meeting ID and password. This feature is ideal for meetings where the host wants to prevent interruptions or where sensitive information may be shared. When you lock a Zoom Meeting that’s already started, no new participants can join, even if they have the meeting ID and password (if you have required one). In the meeting, click Participants at the bottom of your Zoom window. In the Participants pop-up, click the button that says Lock Meeting.
- Ability to Remove Participants — Meeting hosts have the ability to remove participants from meetings, allowing them to remove anyone who does not belong in the meeting.
- Allow removed participants to rejoin – When you do remove someone, they can’t rejoin the meeting. But you can toggle your settings to allow removed participants to rejoin, in case you boot the wrong person.
- Identify Guest Participants — Zoom hosts and other users on the account can check the Participants list to see whether anyone outside of your Zoom account has joined the meeting. When the feature is enabled, any guest who is not signed in or signed in from a different email domain from the host will appear in the Participants list with a light orange background behind their names.
- Ability to Screen-Share a Single Application — When participants are sharing their screens, they have the ability to share an entire screen or just the application of their choice. This prevents participants from accidentally revealing confidential information during a meeting and ensures they share only what they want to share. Admins can also restrict meeting hosts and participants from sharing their desktops.
- To prevent participants from screen sharing during a call, using the host controls at the bottom, click the arrow next to Share Screen and then Advanced Sharing Options.
Under “Who can share?” choose “Only Host” and close the window. You can also lock the Screen Share by default for all your meetings in your web settings.
- Set up your own two-factor authentication: You don’t have to share the actual meeting link! Generate a random Meeting ID when scheduling your event and require a password to join. Then you can share that Meeting ID on Twitter but only send the password to join via DM.
- Avoid using your Personal Meeting ID (PMI) to host public events. Your PMI is basically one continuous meeting and you don’t want randos crashing your personal virtual space after the party’s over. Learn about meeting IDs and how to generate a random meeting ID (at the 0:27 mark) in this video tutorial.
- Put ‘em on hold: You can put everyone else on hold, and the attendees’ video and audio connections will be disabled momentarily. Click on someone’s video thumbnail and select Start Attendee On Hold to activate this feature. Click Take Off Hold in the Participants list when you’re ready to have them back.
- Disable video: Hosts can turn someone’s video off. This will allow hosts to block unwanted, distracting, or inappropriate gestures on video or for that time your friend’s inside pocket is the star of the show.
- Mute participants: Hosts can mute/unmute individual participants or all of them at once. Hosts can block unwanted, distracting, or inappropriate noise from other participants. You can also enable Mute Upon Entry in your settings to keep the clamor at bay in large meetings.
- Turn off file transfer: In-meeting file transfer allows people to share files through the in-meeting chat. Toggle this off to keep the chat from getting bombarded with unsolicited pics, GIFs, memes, and other content.
- Turn off annotation: You and your attendees can doodle and mark up content together using annotations during screen share. You can disable the annotation feature in your Zoom settings to prevent people from writing all over the screens.
- Disable private chat: Zoom has in-meeting chat for everyone or participants can message each other privately. Restrict participants’ ability to chat amongst one another while your event is going on and cut back on distractions. This is really to prevent anyone from getting unwanted messages during the meeting.
After the meeting
- Secure Meeting Recordings — With Zoom’s meeting recordings feature, you’ll have the information from every meeting you record at your fingertips. You can store these recordings in Zoom’s secure cloud environment and password-protect them or restrict access by domain. You also can store these locally on your machine, giving you more control over who can view your meeting recordings.
For cloud recording, the following settings can be added:
