Guidance for organizing and hosting secure video conferences

June 25, 2020

A message from Vice President for Information Technology & CIO Mur Muchane 

Dear Colleagues,

In response to the zoom-bombing events where racist, anti-semitic, and additional offensive language and imagery were used during yesterday morning’s Staff Advisory Council meeting, I wanted to share some information for those organizing and hosting video conferences. The meeting link and password were posted on inside.wfu.edu, a public-facing website. Once it was published, it was easy for the link to find its way to malicious sites. Please do not publicly share meeting links. We also recommend contacting IS when planning a large online event to request a webinar license and multimedia specialist to help organize and host your meeting. Finally, we recommend that if a meeting is zoom-bombed, that the meeting be immediately terminated and rescheduled.

Recommended security practices when organizing meetings for Webex and Zoom:

• Limit attendees to @wfu.edu accounts to ensure that only Wake Forest faculty, staff, and students can join your meeting. 
  
• Lock your meeting room and enable a virtual waiting room. 
  
• Make sure all of your meetings have a password. 
  
• Never publish the join URL for your meetings. 
  

Recommended security practices when hosting Webex and Zoom meetings with a large audience: 

• Contact Information Systems to request a webinar license and multimedia specialist to help organize and host your meeting. 
  
• Mute all participants upon entry.
  
• Turn off annotation. 
  
• Disable private chat. 
  
• Remove participants from your meeting as soon as they begin being disruptive. 
  

Recommended security practices when joining a WFU hosted video conference:

• Rename yourself as the name your colleagues know you as. For example, if you have a nickname, use something only WFU colleagues would know to make it more difficult for people to use your name to join meetings.
  
• Join using your WFU email address whenever possible. 
  

For information on how to enable or execute any of these practices in your video conference platform, visit this help article on Privacy and Security Practices for Video Conferencing.

If you have questions concerning this message or need assistance, please contact the Information Systems Service Desk at (336)-758-4357 (HELP) or help@wfu.edu.