Environment
U-M Zoom
Issue
U-M has taken some proactive measures to ensure our meetings, classes, and community are protected, but securing Zoom meetings and webinars is a shared responsibility, and hosts especially have a role to play in ensuring Zoom sessions are appropriately protected.
Securing your Zoom meetings and webinars that you host ensures that they stay private and free of uninvited participants. Refer to the information below for more details.
Resolution
The following are possible ways to make your U-M Zoom meetings and webinars more secure. Select the options that work best for you and your participants.
Prevent unwanted participants from joining your meeting/webinar
There are three options you can use to prevent unwanted participants from joining your Zoom meeting or webinar. Use multiple options together for extra security.
- Require authentication through U-M Weblogin to join
- Enable the Waiting Room feature
- Require a passcode to join
Refer to Article ID: 4589 to learn about these three options and which is right for your meeting or webinar.
Avoid publishing meeting/webinar information publicly
- Avoid publishing meeting or webinar URLs or IDs in public communication channels, like websites or social media.
- Remind participants not to share meeting details publicly or with others not invited.
- For public events, we recommend that you:
- Make the event a webinar instead of a meeting. Webinars give the host more control over attendees. For example, attendees cannot be seen (video) or heard (audio) or share their screens unless the host permits. Learn more about the differences between meetings and webinars.
- Use registration forms to review participants before sending them the join information.
- Learn more about enabling registration for meetings and webinars, including customization options.
- Consider turning off the Allow attendees to join from multiple devices option.
- When this setting is off, the registration link can only be used once.
- When this setting is on, the registration link can be used repeatedly, meaning a registrant could share the link with others or even post it publicly, allowing unlimited people to access the meeting/webinar with the same registration.
- Everyone who uses that link will appear in the Participants list as the registered person.
- Limit the event to U-M participants (meetings/webinars) and/or add a Waiting Room (meetings only).
Adjust your account settings
Meeting options when scheduling individual meetings
- Do not use Allow participants to join before host to ensure participants are not able to join the meeting before the host arrives.
- Refer to Zoom Support: Allowing participants to join before host for more information on enabling/disabling this setting at the account level (for all meetings you host) and for already scheduled meetings you host.
- If you have both Allow participants to join before host and Automatically record meeting enabled for your meeting, when the first participant joins a meeting, the cloud recording will automatically begin recording, regardless of whether the host joins the meeting. (After the meeting ends, the recording will be saved to the host's account and not the participant's). However, if you select the automatic recording to be done locally on your computer, it will not automatically start until you (the host) join the meeting. Refer to Zoom Support: Start recordings without the host for more information.
- Check the Mute participants upon entry box to automatically mute participants as they join the meeting. You can choose during the meeting whether they are permitted to unmute themselves.
- This setting can be adjusted when scheduling the meeting, after scheduling the meeting, or during the meeting. While scheduling or editing a scheduled meeting, you will find the checkbox under the Options section. During the meeting, click Participants from the toolbar and click the three-dot menu icon in the bottom-right corner of the panel to find the option.
User settings and defaults
The settings you enable/disable at the account level will apply to you and any meetings/webinars you host. You can adjust these settings via the U-M Zoom web portal.
- Enable at least one security option for every meeting you create in U-M Zoom.
- Limit individuals' access to in-meeting/in-webinar chat.
- Turn off Send files via meeting chat and Send files via webinar chat, ensuring participants cannot share files in the in-meeting/in-webinar chat. However, this also affects the ability of hosts to send files.
- Set the default screen-sharing permissions for your meetings to allow hosts and co-hosts to share their screens only.
- From your U-M Zoom account settings: Meeting tab > In Meeting (Basic) > Screen sharing. Ensure Screen sharing is toggled on and One participant can share at a time is selected under "How many participants can share at the same time?" Select Host Only under "Who can share?" and click Save.
- During the meeting, you can either turn off this setting via the host tools (found in the bottom toolbar) or promote a participant to a co-host to allow them to share.
- Turning off this setting in an individual meeting changes the setting for that meeting only and will not impact other meetings you host.
- Set the default annotating screen share permissions for your meetings to allow only the individual who is screen sharing to annotate.
- From your U-M Zoom account settings: Meeting tab > In Meeting (Basic) > Annotation. Ensure Annotation is toggled on, check the Only the user who is sharing can annotate box, and click Save.
- During the meeting, you can change this setting to allow participants to annotate your screen. While screen sharing, click Host tools (from the bottom toolbar) and check Annotate on shared content from the drop-down menu.
- Turning off this setting in an individual meeting changes the setting for that meeting only and will not impact other meetings you host.
- Ensure the Allow removed participants to rejoin setting is toggled off (Meeting tab > In Meeting (Basic) > Allow removed participants to rejoin). This way, if you remove a participant from your meeting, they will be blocked from rejoining.
- Protect participant privacy by masking phone numbers in the Participants list. This prevents meeting attendees from identifying other attendees' phone numbers.
- From your U-M Zoom account settings, click the Audio Conferencing tab and ensure Mask phone number in the participant list is toggled on.
Minimize disruptions
You should review the host tools available to hosts during a meeting (found in the bottom toolbar). The information below goes into more detail regarding specific controls that could help minimize disruptions.
Important: In case of a significant disruption, you can turn off all participants' abilities during the meeting. Click
Host tools (in the toolbar) and click
Suspend participant activities from the drop-down menu.
Audio and video
- Prevent participants from unmuting themselves during the meeting unless you allow them to do so. Click Host tools (in the toolbar) and uncheck Unmute themselves from the drop-down menu.
- The host, co-hosts, and assigned language interpreters are exempt from this when it's turned off.
- Turning off this option does not affect participants' ability to control their audio while in a breakout room. Only participants in the main session are affected.
- You can individually allow participants to unmute without rechecking this option. Click Participants (in the toolbar) and then click Ask to unmute next to an individual's name.
- Try asking participants to raise their hands to speak and unmute them when it is their turn.
- You can also mute participants by default when they join meetings you host.
- For all meetings you host: From your U-M Zoom account settings: Meeting tab > Schedule Meeting > Mute all participants when they join a meeting. Ensure Mute all participants when they join a meeting is toggled on.
- During a specific meeting you host: Click Participants (in the toolbar) > click the three-dot icon at the bottom of the menu > check Mute participants upon entry.
- Prevent participants from starting their video during the meeting unless you allow them to do so. Click Host tools (in the toolbar) and uncheck Start video from the drop-down menu.
- Turning off this option does not affect participants' ability to control their video while in a breakout room. Only participants in the main session are affected.
- You can individually allow participants to unmute without rechecking this option. Click Participants (in the toolbar), click the three-dot icon beside the individual's name, and select Ask to start video from the drop-down.
- Hide participant's profile pictures. By default, if someone's video isn't turned on, their profile picture will be displayed instead. To avoid potential disruptive profile pictures, click Host tools (in the toolbar) and check Hide profile pictures from the drop-down menu.
- Display names are shown instead of pictures.
- Turning off this option will also remove the host's profile picture from view.
Screen-sharing and annotation
- Prevent participants from sharing their screens unless you allow them. Click Host tools (in the toolbar) and uncheck Share screen from the drop-down menu.
- Prevent participants from annotating on a shared screen. While screen sharing, click Host tools (from the bottom toolbar) and check Annotate on shared content from the drop-down menu.
Chat and Q&A
- Limit individuals' access to in-meeting/in-webinar chat to control who can see chats that participants/attendees send.
- Limit individuals' access when using the Q&A feature in meetings/webinars.
- Disallow participants/attendees from sending anonymous questions.
- For all meetings/webinars you host:
- Meetings: From your U-M Zoom account settings: Meeting tab > In Meeting (Advanced) > Q&A in meetings. Uncheck Allow anonymous questions under "Q&A in meeting - additional settings."
- Webinars: From your U-M Zoom account settings: Webinar tab > In Webinar > Q&A. Uncheck Allow anonymous questions under "Additional settings."
- During a specific meeting/webinar you host: Click Q&A (in the toolbar), click the gear icon in the top right of the Q&A panel, and uncheck Allow anonymous questions from the drop-down.
- Only allow participants/attendees to view answered questions.
- For all meetings/webinars you host:
- Meetings: From your U-M Zoom account settings: Meeting tab > In Meeting (Advanced) > Q&A in meetings. Select answered questions only under "Q&A in meeting - additional settings."
- Webinars: From your U-M Zoom account settings: Webinar tab > In Webinar > Q&A. Select answered questions only under "Allow attendees to view."
- During a specific meeting/webinar you host: Click Q&A (in the toolbar), click the gear icon in the top right of the Q&A panel, and select Answered questions only under "Allow attendees/participants to view."
- Refer to Zoom Support: Using Q and A in a Zoom webinar and Using Q and A in Zoom Meetings for more information.
Other
- Lock your meeting/webinar if everyone who should be there has joined. When a meeting/webinar is locked, no other participants/attendees can join.
- Meetings: Click Host tools (in the toolbar) and check Lock meeting from the drop-down menu.
- Webinars: Click Participants (in the toolbar), click the three-dot icon at the bottom of the panel, and check Lock webinar.
- Turn on the Waiting Room if most individuals who should be at the meeting have already joined. Click Host tools (in the toolbar) and check Enable waiting room from the drop-down menu.
- All participants in the meeting will be unaffected. Anyone who tries to join after this point will be subject to the Waiting Room rules defined in your "Waiting Room Options" set via your U-M Zoom account settings (even if you don't have Waiting Rooms enabled at the account level).
- Prevent participants/panelists from renaming themselves during the meeting/webinar.
- Disruptors commonly change their names in meetings and webinars to offensive words or phrases or to another person in the meeting/webinar's name to create confusion.
- Meetings: Click Host tools (in the toolbar) and uncheck Rename themselves from the drop-down menu.
- Webinars: Click Participants (in the toolbar), click the three-dot icon at the bottom of the panel, and uncheck Allow panelists to rename themselves.
- Only panelists can rename themselves by default. Attendees cannot do so since their audio/video is not displayed.
Additional resources
Additional Information
Need additional information or assistance? Contact the ITS Service Center.