 When you host a large online event on Zoom, there is always a possibility that someone in the audience will disrupt the event, whether intentionally or unintentionally. In this video, I'm going to show you 5 simple steps to create a secured, iron-clad event that will keep the Zoom bombers at bay. Let's get started. A year ago, when the global pandemic started and we switched to online meetings using Zoom, the term Zoom bombing was heard quite often as people were not familiar with the technology and were unable to manage the disruptions. It did not help that Zoom had security controls all over the place. Some settings had to be done in the Zoom dashboard, while other settings were found spread all over the Zoom client. For example, if we wanted to prevent participants from unmuting themselves, we had to go to participants, then click on these three dots and then disable this option which says allow participants to unmute themselves. Due to the backlash it faced on its security weaknesses, Zoom finally introduced a new feature in the Zoom client where all the security controls are grouped together for easier management. Let's see how we can control these security features to prevent Zoom bombing in your event. When the event is about to start, go to the security option and make sure that the share screen is disabled. Currently, anyone in the audience can share their screen, but when you click on it, we can see that the share screen is now disabled. With this setting, the only persons in the audience who can share their screen is the host and anybody else who is marked as a co-host. If this participant called Hackers tries to share his screen, he will get an alert on his device saying only the host can share in this meeting. If you want this person to share his screen, click on the more button and select make co-host. You will get an alert, do you want to make this person a co-host? Click yes. And this person should now be able to share his screen. We can see that this person is now sharing his screen. In case I want to stop the sharing, I can click on this view options and click stop participant sharing. Once the person has finished his presentation, we can always come here, click on the more button and remove the co-host permission. Now if the person tries to share, he will get an error message. If you are certain that your event has no screen sharing, you can disable the share screen button altogether. To do that, log into your zoom portal, go to settings, scroll down till you find the option screen sharing and disable it. If you disable this option in your zoom, you will not be able to do any screen sharing or whiteboard or annotation. Let's try it. Any settings that you update in your zoom dashboard will only take effect if you sign out of your zoom client by clicking on sign out and sign in again. If I start a new meeting by clicking on the new meeting, we can see that the share screen is not available at all. If I click on the security button, it's not available here also. This is an extreme setting that you will apply only if you are certain that your meeting has no need for screen sharing. Let me go back to my account and enable it again. If a host or co-host starts screen sharing, a normal participant in the event gets an opportunity for disruption by using a feature in zoom called annotations. Let's say as a host, I start sharing a PowerPoint presentation by clicking on share screen, select the PowerPoint presentation and click share. Anybody in the audience has the ability to start annotating on your presentation. If I want to prevent participants from annotating, I can click on this three dots and disable annotation for others. But by then the damage is already done. So how do we prevent annotating for others altogether? The setting is in your zoom dashboard. Login to your account, click settings, scroll down till you find this option called annotation and disable annotation in your zoom meetings. And that's all there is to it. With the annotation disabled, nobody in the audience will be able to annotate while there is a presentation going on. Annotations are great tools in a corporate environment where you want to share ideas. But if you are running a large event and you suspect zoom bombing best to disable annotation. The third type of disruption that can happen in your event is an audible disruption. And this could be intentional or unintentional. Many times the participants are not aware that their microphones are on and their audio can disrupt the main event. To ensure there are no audible disruptions, click on security and disable this option that allows the participants to unmute themselves. Click on it. With this setting enabled, the only participants in your event that can unmute themselves are the host and the co-host. To prevent unintentional audio disruptions by your co-host, keep the minimum number of co-hosts for your event. Assign the co-host rights when it is required and withdraw the co-host rights when it is not needed. For example, if there is a presenter, give the co-host rights just before it is his turn to present and once the presentation is over, withdraw the co-host rights permissions. If you want a normal participant to speak at the event, you can always click on his name and click ask to unmute. The next opportunity for disruptions is the chat feature. Participants have the opportunity to share inappropriate content, either as text or even to share files. While this may not be visible or audible disruptions, it is still a disruption for the event. The way I like to set up chat for large events is as follows. In the security, I will make sure that the chat is on because sometimes as a host, we need feedback from the participants or other co-host if something is going wrong. Next I will go to the chat window and click on these three dots and select host only. And what this does is, it allows participants to send messages only to the host or co-host, but messages cannot be sent to everyone in the event. The final step you should take is to enable the waiting room. A waiting room allows you to screen the incoming participant to make sure that they belong in your event. To enable waiting room for your event, click on security and ensure that this option enable waiting room is ticked. When participants try to enter the meeting, they will be first kept in the waiting room where the host or the co-host can review the names of the persons before they are admitted. If someone is trying to enter the meeting and his name is hackers, perhaps we should not admit him in the meeting because he is the type of person we are trying to avoid because of the high chance of disruption to the meeting. To admit the person into the main session, we can click on admit or if we don't want the person, click on the remove button. So there you have it, five simple steps to control zoom bombing for your event. Step one, control screen sharing limited to only the host and the co-host. Step two is to disable annotations and you do that by going to your zoom account and disabling the settings for annotations. Step three is to prevent participants from unmuting themselves. Only the host and co-host can unmute themselves and control that by limiting the number of co-hosts you have for your event. Step four is to control the chat limit chat only to the hosts and finally enable waiting room so you can screen the incoming participants to make sure that you want them in your main session or not. Have a safe and productive event. I wish you all the best.