The company has announced that Google is activating new security features in its Google Meet video chat service for meetings held by education subscribers. The changes, which take effect over the next 15 days, will mean that anonymous users will not be able to join meetings hosted by G Suite for Education or G Suite Enterprise for Education subscribers. An anonymous user is anyone who is not signed in to a Google account, the company says.
The new features appear to be designed to prevent “zoombombing,” where unauthorized users connect to meetings and interrupt them by broadcasting shocking videos or hurling insults. ZDNet He notes that as school lessons moved online due to the pandemic, some students have shared links to their classes and asked pranksters to interrupt them in hopes that they will be allowed to leave early.
Google is not the only company that had to deal with the problem. Zoom, where the phrase “zoombombing” comes from, has introduced a number of new security and privacy enhancements to try to increase security and end the practice. With its recent 5.0 update, for example, it allows users to quickly lock meetings, remove participants, and restrict sharing, and has also enabled passwords by default so that most customers restrict who can access their meetings.
In its announcement, Google says that the new security settings will be enabled by default for Education customers, and that the only way to disable them is to contact G Suite support directly.
