Dear students, faculty and staff,

In response to the recent racially motivated Zoom incident, additional security controls will be made on all GVSU Zoom accounts to ensure better alignment with current security practices. Securing Zoom meetings will be a multi-tiered approach where technology and community education will work together.

Effective immediately, the security changes described below will be enabled on all GVSU Zoom accounts:
 
All meetings will require a waiting room for non-GVSU participants
Meeting hosts will no longer be able to disable the option that would allow non-GVSU participants to join without being manually admitted. Users who are not in the GVSU domain or other approved domains will remain in the waiting room until a host or co-host admits them. For more guidance on how to use Meeting Rooms, please view: Zoom Waiting Rooms Tutorial.

All scheduled and instant meetings will require a passcode
Passcodes have always been a default with the ability to remove the option upon setting up a meeting.  Meeting organizers will no longer be able to disable the passcode requirement for instant meetings or scheduled meetings. For more guidance on meeting and webinar passcodes, please view: Zoom Passcodes Tutorial. 
 
Please note that these changes alone do not guarantee privacy and security in your Zoom meetings.  We need your assistance in learning how to effectively set up your Zoom meetings to better protect our community from unwelcomed and disruptive intrusions.

Please refer to the following best practices for securing your Zoom meetings and reach out to the Information Technology division with any questions you may have. We are here to help. 

1. Whenever possible, do not share Zoom meeting links on social media or other public forums – instead send them to those who have registered for the event
2. Avoid using your Personal Meeting ID (PMI) to host public events
3. When appropriate, assign a co-host to help moderate the meeting. For more information on these controls, please visit: Host and Co-Host Controls. The co-host would be in responsible for:
    a. Allowing participants into the meeting from the waiting room
    b. Mute or Remove participants as needed 
    c. Control screen sharing
    d. Control Annotation
4. Zoom Best Practices for Securing your Zoom Meetings
5. GVSU Zoom Security – Check here often for Zoom related updates

Thank you for your understanding, patience and cooperation as we make these necessary changes to our environment.
 
Miloš Topic, Ph.D.
Vice President and Chief Digital Officer
Information Technology