Zoom will NOT require increased meeting security for educational institutions

Update: Following an announcement that passcodes would be required for all meetings starting 9/27, Zoom made a decision to NOT enforce the passcode requirement for educational institutations, which includes Weill Cornell Medicine. Therefore, ITS did not make passcodes mandatory for Zoom meetings, but we still encourage you to ensure your meetings are as secure as possible. For tips on how to secure your meetings visit our post on how to prevent Zoombombing.

Original post:

To meet Zoom’s new requirement, ITS will be turning on the option to require passcodes for all new meetings by default on September 26th. To make using passcodes seamless, ITS will also be enabling a feature to automatically embed the passcode in the Outlook calendar meeting link.

• For information on how to manage Zoom meeting passcodes, please see:

HowTo: Set and Manage Zoom Passcodes

• For information on how to create a Zoom meeting directly from Outlook, please see: 

         HowTo: Adding Zoom Meetings to Outlook Calendar

Any meeting after September 27th that does not have a passcode – including previously scheduled recurring meetings – will place attendees into Zoom’s “Waiting Room”. Waiting rooms require a meeting host to review and admit participants into the meeting:

WCM’s Zoom meetings will allow anyone logged in using WCM credentials (or from approved affiliated emails) to bypass the waiting room and go straight into the meeting. The currently approved affiliated emails include cornell.edu, nyp.org, cumc.columbia.edu, hss.edu, mskcc.org, tritdi.org, and rockefeller.edu.

Meeting hosts may also choose to opt out of passcodes in favor of waiting rooms if they so desire. 

• For information on how to manage Zoom waiting rooms, please see:

         HowTo: Manage your Zoom Waiting Room