In response to recent issues with Zoom meetings worldwide being attended by uninvited attendees (“Zoombombing”), beginning April 5th, Zoom will require passwords for all meetings and the Waiting Rooms feature will be active by default as additional security enhancements to protect meeting privacy.
Meeting Passwords Enabled “On”
Going forward, your previously scheduled meetings (including those scheduled via your Personal Meeting ID) will have passwords enabled.
If your attendees are joining via a meeting link, there will be no change to their joining experience.
For attendees who join meetings by manually entering a Meeting ID, they will need to enter a password to access the meeting.
Note: Previously scheduled meetings which required a password, do not need to be rescheduled.
Virtual Waiting Room Turned on by Default
Going forward, the
virtual waiting room feature will be automatically turned on by default. The
Waiting Room is just like it sounds: It’s a virtual staging area that prevents people from joining a meeting until the host is ready.
How do I admit participants into my meeting?
It’s simple. As the host, once you’ve joined, you’ll begin to see the number of participants in your waiting room within the Manage Participants icon. Select Manage Participants to view the full list of participants, then, you’ll have the option to admit individually by selecting the blue Admit button or all at once with the Admit All option on the top right-hand side of your screen.
Domain Contacts Visibility
For free Basic domains, contacts in the same domain will no longer be visible. We’ve also removed the option to auto-populate your Contacts list with users from the same domain. If you would like to keep those contacts, you can add them as External Contacts.
Security Toolbar Icon for Hosts
The meeting host will now have a Security option in their meeting controls, which exposes all of Zoom’s existing in-meeting security controls in one place. This includes locking the meeting, enabling Waiting Room, and more. Users can also now enable Waiting Room in a meeting, even if the feature was not turned on before the start of the meeting. For more information, please visit this recently published Blog.
Invite Button on Meeting Client Toolbar
The button to invite others to join your Zoom meeting is now available at the bottom of the Participants panel.
Meeting ID No Longer Displayed
The meeting ID will no longer be displayed in the title bar of the Zoom meeting window. The meeting ID can be found by clicking on Participants, then Invite or by clicking on the info icon at the top left of the client window.
Remove Attendee Attention Tracking Feature
Zoom has removed the attendee attention tracker feature as part of our commitment to the security and privacy of our customers.
File Transfers
The option to do third-party file transfers in Meeting and Chat was temporarily disabled. Local file transfer is available with our latest release. Third-party file transfers and clickable URLs in meeting chat will be added back in an upcoming release.
Join Before Host Emails Disabled
Notifications sent to the host via email when participants are waiting for the host to join the meeting have been disabled.
Setting to Allow Participants to Rename Themselves
Account admins and hosts can now disable the ability for participants to rename themselves in any meeting. This setting is available at the account, group, and user level in the Web portal.
Language for Directory and Company Directory
Domain contacts: The language in your Company directory and Directory has changed. ‘Directory’ is now referred to as ‘Contacts’, ‘My Groups’ has changed to ‘My Contacts’, and ‘Company Directory’ is now listed as ‘All Contacts’ in version 4.6.10.