There’s no denying the fact that the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has completely changed the business landscape. It has brought numerous changes in the business process to prepare for the prevailing and upcoming situations, including lockdown and social distancing.

The pandemic disease has not solely affected people and tolled million deaths, but has also compelled businesses to turn towards adopting remote and virtual alternatives to prevent holding meetings. They are introducing digital solutions into their traditional ways to enable interaction with clients and employees while being within the home premises.

One such mobility solution that is fostering the process of holding meetings is Zoom.

Founded back in 2011, Zoom is a video conferencing and online chat service that enables people to relish the benefits of telecommuting, distance education, and social relations via a cloud-based P2P software platform. It has gained a huge momentum in the Enterprise space during the Coronavirus period as the go-to option for holding business meetings, discussions and having lessons.

A result of which is that Zoom, as per an App Annie’s report, recorded 62M downloads between 14th March, 2020 and 21st March, 2020. Not only this, it also topped the list of downloads of video conferencing applications, as shared by Statista report.

This surge in the popularity of Zoom app, on one side, has shown a significant hike in the revenue value. While on the other side, it has also brought various security concerns into the limelight. Especially security flaws in the Windows 10 build of Zoom, and a bug in URL generation that empowers attackers to eavesdrop on a private conference.

Now, while zoom has come up with its update, Zoom 5.0 after working on strong encryption and various other mobile app security practices, there are a few steps that you – as an individual – can take to prevent zoom bombing.

Something about which we will be talking about in this article.

So, here we go.

1. Avoid Using Personal Meeting IDs

The first and most effective method to safeguard and secure your zoom application meetings is to prevent using your personal meeting ID (PMI). Meaning, a default meeting that launches when you begin an ad hoc meeting. Now, while the PMI does not change on its own, it becomes much easier for one to reach you. 

But, for public meetings, you should schedule new meetings with unique and non-specific generated meeting IDs. This will ensure that only invited attendees will become a part of the conversation. 

2. Request for a Password to Join a Chat

The second best practice to abide for securing your Zoom app meetings is to safeguard the chat via a password. This feature enables only the authorized users to enter into a meeting room and get access to all of its features and functionalities, while keeping the unwanted guests away from the conversation.

3.  Remove Unwanted Guests

Many times, the group conversation is supposed to be held between two or three people within the group. However, everyone gets involved in the conversation. Due to having no interest and role in the meetings, they end up disrupting the conversation; resulting in a huge loss.

Now, in a case like this, you can ensure better interaction on Zoom platform by kicking these participants out of the conversation. All you need to do this is to follow the given below steps –

1. Click on the ‘Participants’ tab.
2. Hover over the name of the unwanted guest and tap on the ‘More’ button.
3. Press on the ‘Remove’ button.

Likewise, you can ensure that they do not join the conversations again by following the steps –

1. Click on the ‘Settings’ button.
2. Tap on the ‘Meeting’ button.
3. Click on the ‘Basic’ tab.
4. Check for ‘Allow Removed Participants to Rejoin’ option and press the ‘disable’ button.

4. Mute Participants 

Many times, users forget to mute during meetings. Their microphone picks the background noise which impedes the meetings, and sometimes transfers data to other platforms. 

Users, in this scenario, can add a tint of security to the meetings by muting all the participants and disabling their ability to unmute themselves in the middle of the conversation.

5.  Control Screen Sharing

Screen sharing is an effective way to collaborate remotely. There’s no denying it. However, they can also result in unwanted interruptions during the meetings. 

So, to provide app participants with the facility to control screen sharing option, it is imperative for businesspeople to toggle off the screen sharing feature in the chat interface.

6.  Disable Private Chat  

Though the prime idea behind initiating in-meeting chats is to introduce another dimension of collaboration to your meetings. Aka, creating a platform for asking questions, looking for solutions, and providing supplemental resources. But, many times, these chats can be disturbing, time-consuming and unproductive. 

So, it is again, must for businesspeople to disable/enable private chats during the meeting.

7.  Turn off Annotation 

Alike private chat and screen sharing, annotation also count among the best tools during remote conferencing. However, they too can be the reason behind security concerns in the Zoom environment. 

So, to ensure this, it is necessary that you disable all the users from the option of annotating during a screen share – temporarily or permanently.

8.  Employ Waiting Rooms  

Again, focusing on the waiting room feature is also a great practice to ensure zoom app meetings security. 

This feature enables businesspeople to screen participants before empowering them to enter any meeting. Though used often for tasks like interviews or virtual office hours, this also enables hosts an opportunity to control their session security.

9.  Check for the Update

To overcome the growing security issues, the Zoom team are continuously investing their time and efforts into maintaining and updating their application. So, it is required for you, as a user, to check for the latest updates regularly and eventually, update your application.

The aforementioned are a few of the security practices that can make your Zoom app meetings successful, streamlined, and secure. So, do not remain sitting on the fences. Apply them today and relish the benefits of Zoom meetings in a healthier, secure, and smart way.