Meeting Hijacked- Left and Restarted- Happened Again Under a Different Participant

[jannukgrrl]

I offered a free, public business webinar with an Eventbrite registration. I knew all attendees personally/professionally, except one, when the meeting started. I admitted everyone who was waiting into the meeting. I had asked that person to turn on their video and change their name. They left. After they left, about ten minutes into the meeting, someone (a known participant) shared their screen (I allow screen sharing and will be changing this setting). It showed a pr0n site with a live video. After realizing that the participant didn't have control of the screen sharing on their end, I took over the sharing and shared a view of my desktop. Someone started scribbling/annotating on the screenshare and wrote an obscenity. Everyone left and rejoined the meeting, and the same thing happened again, but under a different, known participant. This makes me think that some code is embedded in my Zoom meeting room that hijacks participants' screen sharing. I have a Zoom Marketplace Pro account. How can I be assured that this is remedied? 

I AM changing the following settings- screen sharing and annotating permissions. 

[storyhub]

Your main issues is offering a PUBLIC meeting. That is an invitation for bad actors. Once the bad actor has been admitted they can run scripts to do all kinds of bad things. If you know the attendees you can chat with any questionable participants in the waiting room and not admit them if questionable. Once you have admitted the good participants you can lock the meeting. Only allow screen sharing by other participants when you are sure about their trust.

If this works please click accept as a solution.

[tmjohnson21]

This is good information to know! I had a student meeting yesterday and realized that I made it public (will NEVER do again). The meeting was hijacked and they shared disturbing images and offensive comments. Are there additional steps that I need to take? I do have my organization IT team investigating. 

[Ray_Harwood]

Hey, @tmjohnson21.

Here’s my suggestion. Might be a little more labor intensive the first few times, but it really is the best security you can set up, in my opinion, with the least amount of friction for a classroom environment. 

The most secure sessions have Require Authentication enabled:

It’s one thing to require that they be logged in to any Zoom account (the “good” option), but extra secure if they must be logged in. Unfortunately, this Better option also requires registration, but if you have a list of students’ Zoom addresses, you can upload registrants via CSV and set the registration to NOT be automatically approved. 

Importing:

Editing options:

With this approach, only your assigned/uploaded students can enter (you can add guests manually via the Manage Registrants Edit link), and students must be logged into their own registered Zoom account to enter. 

I like having the Send an email to host option set in this case. You’ll immediately get an email if someone does manage to find your registration link and register “inappropriately”, and if a student needs to register from another email address, you can contact them to confirm before approving their registration.

This process is a little cumbersome if you create a new meeting for each session, but you likely set your classes up as a recurring meeting.  In this case, be sure to set the option to register once and attend any/all sessions:

[tmjohnson21]

Thank you!

[jannukgrrl]

I agree. Starting in 2026, I think I will start charging a nominal ($7) fee for my webinars, if I continue to have them. I think this will discourage the riff raff. 

[jannukgrrl · Accepted solution]

An update- Zoom responded to this issue, stating that they thought it was related to a notetaking bot. There was only one note-taking bot that I initially admitted (Fathom), but I immediately booted it. Given this and the handwritten annotations, I tend to disagree, though I do appreciate the opportunity to use it as an excuse to not allow notetakers in my meetings. Ha!

My remedies- I changed the permissions for screen sharing and annotating, changed my personal meeting ID, and am more cautious when admitting people into my meetings from the waiting room. I'm also considering charging a nominal fee in the future to discourage the riff raff, and am going to explore what @Ray_Harwood stated above. 

I've also shared this experience with others as a cautionary tale, and they all appreciated the heads-up.