Zoom Meetings And Cyber Security

As we are increasingly relying on online teleconferencing platforms for online lessons and meetings, we recommend exercising due diligence and caution while using these applications for communication. The following list provides some steps can be taken to mitigate teleconferencing threats:

• When creating a meeting, do not make the meeting or classroom public. In Zoom, there are two options to make a meeting private: “require a meeting password” or use the waiting room feature and control which guests are admitted.

• Do not share a link to a teleconference or classroom on an unrestricted publicly available social media post. Provide the link directly to specific people. This will ensures that your meeting is not available for uninvited guests.

• Managing screen sharing options. In Zoom, you can change the screen sharing options to “Host Only.”

• Ensure that users are using the updated version of remote access/meeting applications. In January 2020, Zoom updated their software. In their security update, the teleconference software provider added passwords by default for meetings and disabled the ability to randomly scan for meetings to join.

• Understand the features of your specific teleconference platform, including how to close a conference call in the middle and how to kick out people who are disrupting. Zoom has posted these steps on their blog.

• Lastly, ensure that your organization’s telework policy or guide addresses requirements for physical and information security. If you were a victim of a teleconference hijacking, or any cyber-crime for that matter, report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center