Photo bombing, the practice of an unwanted person or animal popping into a photograph, can be hilarious and fun. Zoom bombing is a whole different animal and can lead to a serious data breach.
When unauthorized individuals enter a Zoom session, they are most likely there to disrupt the planned proceedings, hack into attendees’ online accounts or launch offensive content onto a shared screen. The same hacking scenario applies to online confabs held via Microsoft® Teams.
No matter which online meeting platform you use, do not use an old password to secure your online meeting account. Close to 500,000 million Zoom users who did just later discovered that their personal information, such as passwords, meeting URLs and Zoom host keys, were being given away for free or almost free on the dark web.
With all of us depending on online meeting platforms, it is important to understand the difference between public and private meeting rooms. Private meeting room meetings are assigned to a particular individual, while public meeting facilities are not associated with anyone. This guideline holds true for the Zoom platform as well as Microsoft Teams. Large meetings of individuals from inside and outside your organization are best held in public meeting rooms, which are accessed via a one-time link. Reserve your private meeting room for smaller gatherings of trusted individuals. Once someone has the link to enter your private meeting room, he or she can attend any future meeting in that virtual room simply by clicking on that link. Private room links can be used repeatedly and only become invalid when the meeting host changes the room or the link.
Zoom hosts who implement a few simple precautions can lessen their risk of Zoom bombing:
- Require participants to enter with a password.
- Change permissions on screen-sharing to “Host Only.”
- Disable “Join Before Hosts” to keep participants in an online waiting room until the host allows them to attend the session.
- Do not post session links on social media or in any public forum (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
- Turn off the option for attendees who have removed from the call to jump back in by disabling the “Allow Removed Participants to Rejoin” option.
This same advice holds true for online meetings held via Microsoft Teams. Check Microsoft Support for additional information.
A 2nd Chance Bail Bonds remains at the ready to assist you and your clients around the clock. We are in our offices every day to serve you in person or to meet with you online, and we can also process bail bonds electronically.
