Meeting Security Options

Without appropriate security measures in place your meetings are at risk for unwanted, disruptive intrusion by insertion of material that is lewd, obscene, or offensive in nature, which typically results in the meeting being forced to shutdown.

This page provides a number of options, in order of importance. For additional security options not listed here, visit our Additional Meeting Security Options help page.

It's important to have a plan for if your meetings get hijacked or interrupted despite your best efforts. This is violent behavior, even online, and people in the meetings will be affected by it. Once you have removed the disrupters or locked down the meeting, remember to take time to acknowledge the violence in the moment (racist, sexist, etc), and possibly give people time or space to recover either after the meeting or after the attack.

Security settings may affect accessibility for students in your class, so please review these guidelines for accessible Zoom meetings (opens in new tab) before making any changes.

If you don't happen to have some of these settings enabled prior to your meeting there are several in-meeting security options (opens in new tab) you can enable or disable.

When scheduling your meeting, Zoom offers 3 main options to apply some base of security to your meeting. You have the option to apply as many as you would like or none at all. We recommend applying one at a minimum.

Passcode protect your meetings

Require that participants enter a passcode before they are allowed to join your meeting.

There are two things that you must complete before you start your meeting. You will need to change your passcode default account settings, and passcode protect your meeting.

Step 1

First you need to change your passcode defaults within your web portal account settings.

In a web browser, navigate and sign in to the University Zoom web portal. Learn how at Access University Zoom Web Portal.

Step 2

Select the Settings button in the navigation side panel.

Step 3

Find and toggle On the meeting setting for Require passcode for participants joining by phone. 

Step 4

Find and toggle Off the meeting setting for Embed passcode in invite link for one-click join.

Step 5

Now you need to add a passcode when you create your meeting.

Schedule a new meeting either through the Zoom web portal or through a Brightspace course.

Step 6

Within the meeting scheduler interface and within the Security options, select the option for Passcode. Zoom will automatically generate a passcode or you can create your own.

Use a waiting room

A waiting room allows you to control or filter which participants can enter your meeting and when. This feature works very well for small meetings (10-20 participants). If you have a larger meeting and wish to enable a waiting room you might consider having one or more co-hosts that can manage the waiting room for you.

When the waiting room is enabled for a meeting, participants will be moved into the waiting room once they select the Zoom meeting link. They will linger in the waiting room until the host gives them access to enter the main meeting room. Hosts can use this feature to meet with one person at a time, such as for office hours. They can also use this feature to add security to the meeting, since they must approve entry of participants either one by one or all at once. Learn how to customize your waiting room by visiting Zoom's support page on How to Customize the Waiting Room (opens in a new tab).

You can enable a waiting room when you create the meeting or, if you enter the meeting early, you can enable it in the meeting before other participants arrive.

Enable Waiting Room When you Create the Meeting

Schedule a new meeting either through the Zoom web portal or through a Brightspace course.

Within the meeting scheduler interface and within the Security options, select the option for Waiting Room.

Enable and Manage Waiting Room During the Meeting

To enable the waiting room while inside of a meeting, as the host, select the Security icon within the in-meeting toolbar, and then select the option Enable Waiting Room. A checkmark will appear before the setting indicating it has been enabled. To disable the waiting room, select the same Enable Waiting Room option again and the checkmark will disappear indicating it has been disabled.

Now, let's discuss how to admit participants who are in the waiting room.

When someone enters the waiting room, the host receives a pop-up message on the screen.

To allow entry from within the pop-up message, select the Admit button.

To see a list of everyone that is within the waiting room, select the Participants icon from the in-meeting toolbar.

In the Waiting Room section at the top of the participant list, select the Admit button next to a participants name to allow them to join the meeting.

To admit all of the participants who are within the waiting room at once, select the Admit All button.

Require meeting authentication

Use authentication for your meeting so that only university users can join.

Authentication allows the host to restrict participants who can join a meeting to those who are logged into Zoom with their UA Zoom account. Anyone outside of the university who doesn't have a UA NetID and access to a UA Zoom account would not be able to join your meeting. This could affect outside guest speakers that you might want to join your meeting. If you have outside guest speakers you can add authentication exceptions (opens in new tab).

If a participant tries to join a meeting or webinar and is not signed in to the Zoom client (app) with their university Zoom account, or they are signed in with some other Zoom account besides their university Zoom account, they will receive one of the following messages: 

If they are NOT signed in to the Zoom client with their university Zoom account they will receive an error message of:

If they are signed in to the Zoom client but with a non university Zoom account they will receive an error message of:

How Do Students Join a Meeting that has Authentication Required?

You can provide the following help page link to your students that will instruct them how to join a meeting that has authentication required.

Join Zoom Meeting That Requires Authentication

Enable Authentication for your Zoom Account

Enabling this setting on your Zoom account will automatically apply an authentication requirement to all future scheduled meetings. You won't need to apply the setting during the scheduling process. To enable Only authenticated users can join meetings on your Zoom account do the following:

In a web browser, navigate and sign in to the Zoom web portal. Learn how at Access University Zoom Web Portal.

In the navigation panel, select Settings.

Under the Security section, verify that Only authenticated users can join meetings is enabled. The toggle will appear blue if it is enabled. If the setting is disabled, select the toggle to enable it. 

Optionally you can select Hide in the Selection for the Sign in to Zoom and UArizona WebAuth Beta DO NOT USE authentication options.

Enable Authentication When Scheduling a Meeting

If you do not enable the authentication option at your account level, then you will need to manually enable the setting for each meeting you schedule.

If you are scheduling your meeting from within your Brightspace course then select UA Tools > Zoom in the course navbar. If you are scheduling your meeting from within the UA Zoom Web Portal then select Meetings in the navigation panel on the left. 

Select the Schedule a Meeting button.

Under the Security section, select Require authentication to join and verify that University of Arizona Only appears as the selection in the drop-down menu.

Select the Save button to save your meeting.

Back to Top