By REIN TARINAY
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – As working in a remote environment or from one’s home becomes the “new normal,” cyber-security experts have advised on the use of secured means of communication platform for online classes, public fora, office meetings, and information dissemination.
These past weeks, teleconferencing app such as Zoom has been under fire over security and privacy breaches, and vulnerabilities to hijacking of uninvited participants in a forum, also known as “zoombombing.”
Here in the Philippines, uninvited participants believed to be trolls zoombombed a webinar held by a group of women advocates on April 17. Trolls who hijacked the webinar showed doodles of penis and played an audio recording of what appeared to be from a pornographic video.
How do we prevent ‘zoombombing?
Do not share your meeting ID on public – One way to prevent zoombombing is to keep your Meeting ID private. When holding a public discussion, it is helpful to filter participants by creating an RSVP. Meeting ID may be shared through secured e-mail, such as Protonmail.
Customize Meeting Password – Zoom can automatically generate a password for meeting rooms. However, auto-generated passwords are vulnerable to attacks. One option is to customize it. Click here to know how.
Limit screen sharing – When screen sharing is provided to “all,” any participant who enters the virtual meeting room can play images or videos to the rest of the participants. This can be used to project any harmful and violent content.
In the advance setting, check the option that only the meeting host can share the screen.
Turn off annotation – Host and participants have the privilege to doodle and mark up content together using annotations. To prevent trolls from writing all over the screen, disable the annotation feature in your Zoom app.
Kick them out – When participants are still not following the community guidelines set, they may be kicked out. Go to the Participants pane, hover on her or his name, and choose Remove. Those kicked out from the Meeting Room cannot rejoin.
If all else fails, Jitsi, a more secured teleconferencing app, may also be used.
References:
How to Keep Uninvited Guests Out of Your Zoom Event
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