Video conferencing service Zoom has added a set of security features to help users combat ‘Zoom-bombing’ attacks. 

The new controls will help account holders remove unwanted guests and also spot if their meeting’s ID number has been shared online.

Zoom-booming has been an issue for the company throughout the year with hackers exploiting its mass adoption. This has affected both personal and professional meetings, including legal proceedings, and many will see this fix as long overdue. 

Starting this week, hosts and co-hosts will be given an option to temporarily pause their meeting and remove unwanted guests. Users can click a new “Suspend Participant Activities” button, which stops all video, audio, chat functions, screen sharing and recording. 

Hosts and co-hosts will then be asked if they want to report a user from their meeting, with the option to share a screenshot of them. They will then be removed once ‘Submit’ is clicked. Zoom’s security team will be notified and hosts can continue with their meeting by individually restarting all the features. This service will be set as the default for all free and paid Zoom users. 

Hosts and co-hosts can already report users with the security icon in the top corner, but this can also be enabled for non-hosts by account owners and admins. The option is available via the web browser on Mac, PC, Linux and on Zoom’s mobile apps. 

Soon, users will also be able to see if their meeting has been compromised with an ‘At-Risk Meeting Notifier’ which scans public social media posts and other websites for publicly shared meeting links. When the tool spots a meeting that’s potentially at risk of disruption, it automatically alerts the account owner by email with advice. This will most likely be to delete the vulnerable meeting and create a new one with a different ID.