Dear SOU Campus Community:
As many of you already know, the nationwide increase in remote learning and online meetings through Zoom, Google Meet, and other similar technology has resulted in many incidents of “Zoom Bombing”. Zoom Bombing occurs when an uninvited or unauthorized person gains access to a video meeting.
This communication is to notify you that there have been real and unfortunate Zoom Bombing incidents in SOU remote classes and other meetings, including situations that have involved graphic, illegal or criminal content or activity. This email is intended to provide you a warning about these incidents and provide important information that will help you mitigate and prevent these incidents.
To prevent these attacks, we recommend that all meeting hosts and participants strictly observe the following precautions:
- All meeting hosts MUST set meetings using their SOU authenticated accounts and be sure to avoid using personal accounts to run meetings.
- All meeting hosts MUST use settings that require approval to enter the meeting. This is enabled by default, but hosts MUST verify that this setting has not been changed.
- All meeting hosts MUST NOT admit unknown participants into a video meeting.
- All participants MUST NOT share meeting links for class activities with non-SOU students or personnel. Business meetings should be shared only with those that have a legitimate business need to participate in the meeting.
- All Zoom users should make sure their version of Zoom is up to date. Zoom version 5.0.1 is the latest version. Updating Zoom can be accomplished on your own. If you need assistance, contact I.T. and we will walk you through the procedure.
These precautions require the assistance and dedication of all meeting participants. While security patches from software providers help, most offenders get through by relying on human errors. So please be committed to these efforts.
If you become aware of an incident or wish to seek support from SOU regarding such an incident, please submit a report to https://inside.sou.edu/eg/reporting.html so the matter can be addressed through our CARES process, Title IX, or any other appropriate pathway.
Thank you,
Thomas Battaglia
Chief Information Officer
Note: This communication was sent as a timely warning notification pursuant to the Jeanne Clery Act.
