Video meeting company Zoom rolled out new options to counter the threat of “Zoom bombing.”

Suspending and Reporting

Zoom added two new security features in November 2020 that customers could use to address disruptive and uninvited callers, or Zoom bombers.

1. Suspend Participant Activities

This enables hosts and cohosts to suspend meeting functions, including video, audio, in-meeting chat and breakout rooms. If they choose that option, Zoom’s platform will ask attendees whether they would like to eject a Zoom-bombing user from the meeting and share any details, including but not limited to a screenshot.

Using this will remove the person from the call and notify Zoom’s Trust & Safety team. At that point, hosts and co-hosts can resume the meeting by turning functions back on one by one.

2. Reporting Disruptive Attendees

This enables users — not just hosts and co-hosts, but anyone in the meeting — to report disruptive behavior like Zoom bombing from within the Zoom client using the “Security” badge. All account owners and admins need to do is enable reporting for non-hosts in their web settings.

3. At-Risk Meeting Notifier

The release of these two features above complements the work of the At-Risk Meeting Notifier. The At-Risk Meeting Notifier scans social media posts and other websites for publicly shared Zoom meeting links. In the event it finds a link at risk of being disrupted by Zoom bombing, the tool alerts the account owner and provides guidelines for next steps. Those steps could involve canceling and rescheduling the meeting using a different meeting ID.

Understanding the Threat of Zoom Bombing

Zoom bombing is one of the most well-known risks with Zoom’s video meeting app. It’s when an uninvited guest joins a meeting when they might have discovered the meeting’s ID via a shared in a public forum. Threat actors can also try to guess a valid meeting ID, a tactic known as ‘war dialing’.

Once they’re inside, the attacker can mess with the meeting in several ways. For instance, they can hijack the meeting and then share inappropriate media or make insensitive comments.

Or, malicious actors could choose to remain quiet so they can spy on the meeting. In this way, they can get information such as who is involved, where they work and what they’re discussing. This in turn can be used to conduct other attacks, such as phishing campaigns in the future.

Zoom Security Best Practices

Researchers are constantly discovering new security threats and risks that affect Zoom and other video conferencing apps. Acknowledging that work, make an effort to implement updates for video conferencing software on an ongoing basis. Also, consider testing new features when the app developers make them available.

At the same time, organizations and users can take specific steps to minimize the threat of Zoom bombing or other meeting bombing. These security tips include not sharing meeting IDs on public websites such as social media platforms, using passwords to prevent anyone from joining a call, setting up waiting rooms to screen for unexpected guests and disabling automatic screen sharing. Lastly, remember you always have the option of ending a call if someone decides to hijack it.

More from News

Securing critical infrastructure with the carrot and stick

4 min read - It wasn’t long ago that cybersecurity was a fringe topic of interest. Now, headline-making breaches impact large numbers of everyday citizens. Entire cities find themselves under cyberattack. In a short time, cyber has taken an important place in the national discourse. Today, governments, regulatory agencies and companies must work together to confront this growing threat. So how is the federal government bolstering security for critical infrastructure? It looks like they are using a carrot-and-stick approach. Back in March 2022, the…

650,000 cyber jobs are now vacant: How to tackle the risk

4 min read - How far is the United States behind in filing cybersecurity jobs? As per Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., Chairman of the HHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee, overseas adversaries have a workforce advantage over FBI cyber personnel of 50 to one. His statements were made during a recent subcommittee hearing titled “Growing the National Cybersecurity Talent Pipeline.” Meanwhile, recent CyberSeek data shows over 650,000 cyber jobs to fill nationwide. Given the rising rate of cyberattacks, these numbers are truly alarming. How…

Will data backups save you from ransomware? Think again

4 min read - Backups are an essential part of any solid anti-ransomware strategy. In fact, research shows that the median recovery cost for ransomware victims that used backups is half the cost incurred by those that paid the ransom. But not all data backup approaches are created equal. A separate report found that in 93% of ransomware incidents, threat actors actively target backup repositories. This results in 75% of victims losing at least some of their backups during the attack, and more than…

Should you worry about state-sponsored attacks? Maybe not.

4 min read - More than ever, state-sponsored cyber threats worry security professionals. In fact, nation-state activity alerts increased against critical infrastructure from 20% to 40% from 2021 to 2022, according to a recent Microsoft Digital Defense Report. With the advent of the hybrid war in Ukraine, nation-state actors are launching increasingly sophisticated attacks. But is this the most prominent danger facing companies today? While nation-state-based attacks cannot be ignored, it looks like insider cyber incidents are far more common. In fact, for the…