A few setting selections and actions taken by the host can help safeguard the Zoom experience.
We’ll focus on three steps: Prevent, Act, and Report.
One of the ways to prevent unwanted guests from entering your meeting is to configure
a Waiting Room.
All of your participants are placed in a virtual room until you let them in, either all or
one by one.
They’ll see a holding message until you’re ready.
A second option to help prevent misuse by participants is to use a meeting Passcode.
When enabled, participants must enter it before they can enter the meeting or webinar.
Note that depending on your settings, Passcodes may be separate from, or embedded into the
Invitation Link.
If embedded, participants can still enter with a single click so it’s strongly encouraged
that you use this feature in conjunction with a Waiting Room.
[Show option in settings]
Lastly, consider Requiring Authentication to Join.
Simply put, anyone who wants to join your meeting or webinar must be logged into a verified
Zoom account or logged into a Zoom account that is associated with a specific organization’s
domain for example, Zoom.us or university.edu.
Hosts can use all of these options at the same time to help safeguard their meeting
or webinar experience.
From your Zoom web portal, navigate to the primary menu on the left and click Meetings,
then Schedule a Meeting in the top right corner.
Among many scheduling options, about midway down on the page are checkboxes for Waiting
Room, Passcode, and Authentication.
For security and privacy, Zoom requires at least one of these options and has even configured
them in your default settings, with some variation by account type.
Check any box to add the feature to the meeting.
Keep the automatically generated Passcode or customize it.
It’s that simple!
From your Zoom web portal, click Settings, then the Meeting tab, and Security.
Click to toggle on Waiting Rooms and optionally specify which user groups will go into a Waiting
Room using the checkboxes below.
Next, click to require a Passcode when scheduling new meetings.
There are several additional Passcode options here, including the ability to embed them
in the meeting Invite Link, or require them for webinars, and more.
Lastly, toggle on Only authenticated users can join meetings and optionally specify a
domain by clicking Edit next to Sign in to Zoom within a specified domain [show inputting
Zoom.us].
If you’ve enabled a Waiting Room, Passcode, and Authentication, congrats; you've taken
great steps to help secure your session!
But for the unpredictable moments, Zoom’s got your back with several in-meeting options.
In the main meeting toolbar, click the Shield icon.
This menu is only shown to the meeting host and co-host.
There’s a lot you can do here, but make a note of a few essential options:
Lock the meeting with a single click so that no one else can join, or Remove a Participant.
They can’t rejoin unless Allow removed participants to rejoin is enabled in your personal Meeting
settings within the web portal.
Should the need arise, click Suspend All Participant Activities to simultaneously mute everyone,
stop video and screen sharing, hide profile pictures, disable chat and Zoom Apps, and
lock the meeting.
Finally, users have the ability to Report inappropriate behavior to Zoom’s Trust and
Security team.
Zoom takes abusive behavior on its platform seriously and will evaluate misuse to take
appropriate action.
Do this during a meeting by clicking the smaller shield in the upper left corner of the main
meeting window and then clicking Report.
The host is able to select which participants they would like to report, include any written
details, and add attachments.
Or, click More next to any individual in the Participants list and then Report.
Or, if you don’t have time during the session, in your Zoom web portal click Meetings or
Webinars, then the Previous tab.
Hover over a meeting or webinar, then click Report to Zoom.
Keeping our community safe and happy starts by Preventing, Acting, and Reporting!