Virtual Meeting Security Settings

With the increased use of virtual meetings and online classes, this has also exposed our community to the incidence of ‘Zoom bombing’ or cyber criminals hacking into virtual meetings/classes to engage in unlawful acts of cyber bullying, exhibition of pornography, and hate speech to the distress of legitimate participants in such sessions.

In order to help sustain the security of these virtual meetings, we urge meeting hosts to observe the following guidelines while setting up and moderating meetings and classes:

Zoom Virtual Meetings:
  • Version Upgrade: Immediately upgrade all Zoom client versions to the latest version, in order to take advantage of Zoom’s improved security features;
  • Waiting Room: Always enable the Waiting Room option.  The Waiting Room feature gives meeting hosts the ability to screen and control who gets into the actual meeting;
  • Require Registration: Scheduling a meeting that requires registration will allow participants to register with their e-mail, name, other questions, and custom questions, allowing you to capture more information about your attendees. Once this is scheduled, you can manage your registrants, resend confirmation emails, and  can also generate meeting registration reports if you want to download a list of people that registered.
  • Meeting Link or ID: Anyone with the link or Meeting ID of your scheduled Zoom meeting can potentially crash into the meeting.  Share these links or IDs prudently.  Do not share them in social media or to people who are not authorized to call in;
  • Record Meetings: Where possible, record meetings.  It helps if there is cause to  investigate acts of inappropriate behaviors in the future;
  • Secure Meetings with Passwords: Protect every meeting with passwords;
  • Always Pay Attention: Hosts must pay attention at all times.  Eject unwanted participants and use the improved security features to restrict participants’ ability to:
    • Share their screens
    • Rename themselves
    • Chat in the meeting
    • Annotate on the host’s shared content
Blackboard Collaborate Sessions:

  • Uncheck Guest Option: When setting up a Collaborate Meeting, make sure to uncheck the guest option.  If you uncheck “guest”, the participants will need to be enrolled in the Bb Community or Bb Course shell to access the session.
  • Meeting Links: As with Zoom, be prudent in sharing meeting links.  Do not post links in social media or publish them on websites;
  • Record Meetings: Where possible, record meetings.  It helps if there is cause to investigate acts of inappropriate behaviors in the future;
  • Enable ‘Moderators Supervise All Private Chats’: This will grant Instructors/Moderators the ability to ensure that there are no direct messages between members of the session that could violate acceptable classroom conduct;
  • Enable ‘Participants can only chat privately with Moderators’: This alternative option gives Instructors/Moderators the flexibility of controlling chatters or disruptive sessions;
  • Default Attendee Role: Ensure that this is set at ‘Participant’
Privacy and Legal Notices:

Hosts, Moderators and Instructors are reminded to adhere to all relevant privacy regulations and where meetings are recorded, notify participants to that effect prior to the start of the Meeting.

MCC acknowledges that all recordings of classroom lectures are the intellectual property of the instructor, in accordance with all relevant sections of the collective agreement between Faculty and Management.

Technical Support:

Technology Center Support is always here to help:  If you have any difficulty in applying these best practices to your meetings, please get in touch with Technology Center support at: servicedesk@middlesex.mass.edu or call at 978-656-3301.

 
Last Modified: 2/7/24