Issues with Zoom security have been in the news recently. The reported incidents have primarily dealt with people entering meetings (“bombing” or “raiding”) with malicious intent. The majority of the bombings were the result of teens sharing meeting links/IDs with their friends or online through social media platforms such as Discord and Reddit.
In order to prevent this from happening to any GSA virtual class meeting, we are following best practices set out by Zoom and the FBI:
1) All meetings will require a password. If you do not have the password for a meeting your child is joining, reach out to the appropriate teacher.
2) After entering the password, the meeting participants will be admitted through a waiting room. If a teacher does not recognize the participant, they will not allow them to enter the classroom.
These two safeguards should ensure that no one who is not a member of the GSA community can “bomb” our virtual classrooms. However, to be on the safe side, we have asked our teachers to update the settings for their meetings to make them more secure and to be vigilant about monitoring the classroom and immediately ejecting anyone that doesn’t belong.
You can help by never sharing a GSA Zoom link, Meeting ID, or password with anyone outside your child’s class.
By Jenny Leeds