Best Practices for Securing Zoom Meetings

securing Zoom meetings

What is Zoom bombing?

"Zoom bombing" is when an uninvited person joins an online meeting and intentionally disrupts it by sharing their screen with disturbing images or other inappropriate content. While improved security defaults have made it harder for outsiders to crash meetings, incidents still occur.

Key Measures for Avoiding Zoom Bombing

  • Use a unique meeting ID instead of your Personal Meeting ID (PMI) for public or large meetings.
  • Protect meetings with a passcode and share links only through trusted channels.
  • Turn on the Waiting Room and approve participants before they enter.
  • Require participants to sign in with authenticated Zoom accounts.
  • Disable “Join Before Host,” lock the meeting once everyone arrives, and block removed participants from rejoining.
  • Limit disruptions by restricting screen sharing to hosts, muting participants on entry, disabling private chat, and preventing users from renaming themselves.
  • If someone disrupts the meeting,  remove the attendee from the meeting.

Secure your USF Zoom Account and Meetings

Optional:

Meeting Passcodes

When you are scheduling meetings, you can also enable a meeting passcode for the scheduled session as well as for your Personal Meeting ID.  If you schedule a meeting with a passcode, send the passcode in a separate email to the participants, but not in the same email as the invitation.

Password-Protected Zoom Recordings

After signing in to the Zoom portal, choose Settings and click on the Recording tab.  Continue to the Share section, and choose "Require passcode to access shared cloud recordings". As the host, you decide how viewers will access meeting cloud recordings.  When you are signed in to the USF Zoom portal, choose Recordings & Transcripts on the left sidebar, choose a recording, and click the Share button. When the Share screen appears, click the More settings (a little gear icon) and choose the desired options, such as removing the passcode, allowing downloads, setting the view expiration date, and more.

Last updated: May 11, 2026