Defusing the Zoom bomb
Recently there have been some instances of “Zoombombing” – disruption of online taught sessions or meetings by either uninvited externals or students engaging in disruptive activity.
In the event of disruption during a Zoom session, we recommend you use the option Suspend Participant Activity, located in the Security button. This will stop all participants being able to share video, audio and chat; automatically lock the room and allow you to select the participants which need removing and reporting to Zoom. After the disruptive participants are removed you can restore participant access to tools via the Security button and continue the session.
To ensure that the risk of Zoombombing is minimised as far as is possible, see the following best practice in setting up meetings in Zoom:
1. Ensure that all meetings have a password set and meeting links are only available on Blackboard sites rather than social media or open websites.
2. Avoid using your ‘personal zoom room’ for different classes – have a different meeting set up for each module instead.
3. Consider using the newly-enabled option to only allow authenticated users from Sheffield Hallam to attend.
4. Consider enabling the waiting room and only letting in students with names on the class list.
The Digital Learning Team has developed a comprehensive guide to Zoombombing which explains these settings and more in detail.