Zoom, one of the giants in the world of video conferencing tools, has brought out a new feature in order to detect and deal with devious practices that disrupt online meetings. This new feature is called “At-Risk Meeting Notifier” that is launched to alert those who organise the meetings about the risk of disruptions in their online conferences due to Zoombombing practices. 

Zoombombing involves practices to disrupt online conferences. These kinds of activities come into action when one of participants of a meeting shares a link or passwords to a Zoom conference, on social media sites, Reddit threads or Discord channels. 

Zoombombing is an event when some uninvited trolls connect themselves to a Zoom meeting room. These unwelcome guests tend to sabotage the meeting by passing insults, sharing pornographic content, threatening the participants present in the room and other hideous actions. 

What About the New Feature and How Does It Work?

The feature “At-Risk Meeting Notifier” that has been added by Zoom runs on the backend of this online conferencing software and scanning social media posts and any other public websites to emanate Zoom meeting links is how this feature will work. Users do not require any method to enable it as this new function will be active by default.

Once this At-Risk Meeting Notifier detects a Zoom meeting URL, an automatic email is sent to the conference creator which warns them about the chances of attacks and that some anonymous group may be enabled to enter their room and create disruptions. 

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Bombs to Sign Off Hopefully

Zoom became a terrific hit during March this year when COVID-19 pandemic was spreading venomously across the world. This tool proved to be a phenomenal online platform for families, businesses, schools etc. to continue meeting during lockdown. 

Along with Zoom calls, came a high risk of attack- Zoombombing. To deal with the online risks, US Department of Justice warned to prosecute Zoom bombers but the practice of Zoombombing never really seemed to cease. 

As a crucial step to enforce security and repel Zoombombing, the giant video conferencing tool introduced a “Report Participant” button and encouraged meeting passwords. No measure succeeded at keeping Zoom bombing at bay and it still continued the link and password sharing to Zoom meeting, duping them to connect and then, attack.

Zoombombing has only turned out to be a rising issue so far this year. Given the last few measures could not actually combat against the offensive activities, Zoom’s new feature named “At-Risk Meeting Notifier” may fulfill the hope and buzz the bombs away before they even draw themselves into any room.