Zoom has released a new feature that can alert conference organizers when they are at risk of being Zoombombed. Zoombombing attacks can be disruptive, and the only thing needed for one to enter a meeting is a link to the meeting.
The feature has been named the ‘At-Risk-Notifier,’. It runs in Zoom’s back-end servers by continuously scanning public posts on social media and other public sites for meeting links.
If they are detected, you will be alerted that someone you may not want in the meeting has the potential to get in. The notifier automatically sends an email to the conference organizers to warn them that people are trying to disrupt the meeting.
Participants are the cause
Such disruptions have been named Zoom raids or Zoombombs. All year, they have been a big problem for the company and the people who set up these meetings.
Zoombombing happens when trolls connect to a Zoom room that they were not invited to and disrupt the meeting by insulting attendants, playing pornographic content, or threatening the attendants.
The raids happen when one of the participants shares the link and password on social media sites, Reddit threads, or Discord channels, asking people who come across it and are willing to disrupt the meetings.
A problem since March
In March, the Zoom raids became a common phenomenon as the number of people using Zoom surged due to the pandemic. It became the de-facto online tool for all kinds of meetings. The US Department of Justice threatened to sue Zoom bombers in April, but that proved easier said than done.
Since then, Zoom has been telling its users what they can do to stay safe, introduced end-to-end encryption, and now this new notifier. Hopefully, with time, more comprehensive security methods will be released.
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