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Technology Other News 05 Apr 2020 Quick with a fix, Zo ...

Quick with a fix, Zoom rolls out measures to prevent Zoombombing

Published Apr 5, 2020, 4:28 pm IST
Updated Apr 5, 2020, 4:28 pm IST
A school teacher in the US teaches a class using the Zoom web application. (Photo | AFP)

Chennai: After naked men hacked into meetings conducted on Zoom, the videoconferencing app has introduced security measures, to ensure that its millions of users are never again “Zoombombed”.

To prevent unwanted participants from joining meetings, Zoom now requires you to use a password for a personal meeting ID (PMI).


Additionally, default security measures that could have been disabled earlier are now being enabled permanently, Zoom’s support page said.

Now, you will require a password to schedule new meetings, including webinars. This also applies to instant meetings and participants joining the videoconferences by phone.

From today, Sunday April 5, 2020, you will need to resend the link to participants to join webinars that had been scheduled before these changes came into effect. Those joining the webinars or meetings will also have to enter a password. Both the link and the password will be available on Zoom’s website under the tab Meetings > Personal Meeting Room.

However, the invitations will not automatically be updated for meetings previously scheduled using calendar integration. The person who scheduled the meeting will have to resend the invitation and password.

The exception is meetings scheduled using a unique one-time meeting. They do not require passwords.

It goes without saying that all new meetings and webinars will require a password, even if you have a PMI or unique one-time ID. The invitation will include the password, and participants manually entering the meeting/webinar ID, will be prompted for the password.

Among the new changes, the Waiting Room feature on Zoom will also now be enabled by default.

The Waiting Room feature is a good way to ensure that only persons that you want in the meeting are added in manually. You control when to add the individual users. Zoom recommends that everyone who schedules a meeting use this feature.  That way, even if the meeting link and password were leaked to outsiders, they will not be able to join the meeting without you individually flagging them in.
