Zoom Releases External Authentication Feature to Make Online Classrooms More Secure
Zoom released an additional authentication feature to make online classrooms more secure. The Single Sign-On (SSO) feature will allow users to log in one time, use one set of credentials and get access to all the applications, services, and data they need. Students can be correctly identified during the meeting using the name from the identity provider (IDP) and only verified students can be allowed to participate in the session. This adds an extra layer of security to Zoom and makes the model of online learning simpler for students as well as teachers.
Zoom already has an SSO feature for faculty and staff to securely log in their Zoom accounts, and this is now being expanded to the classroom for students as well, the company said in a press release. Profile authentication enables hosts limit meeting participants to logged-in users and Zoom users whose email addresses contain a specific domain only.
School IT regulators can create their Zoom accounts so that students are required to authenticate against the SSO feature of the school identity system before joining the meeting. This new authentication puts in an additional layer of security to the Zoom classes. It is a simple and safe way to authenticate users.
This makes things easy for students such as accessing their school applications and other data in one-click and also streamlines username and password management. This way, they won’t get stuck out of the meeting and miss out on anything. This will also facilitate the attendance management, as every student’s Zoom classes history gets logged in the Zoom dashboard.
As a precautionary measure to coronavirus pandemic, the world moved to virtual classrooms and video conferencing services such as Zoom, as a result, these platforms have experienced a surge in users. Hybrid classrooms, however, have their own share of problems, mostly linked to privacy and security of user data.
