An unsettling number of Zoom meetings have been hijacked to display child pornography, according to the FBI.
“During the last few months, the FBI has received more than 195 reports of incidents throughout the United States and in other countries in which a Zoom participant was able to broadcast a video depicting child sexual abuse material,” the federal agency said on Wednesday.
The FBI didn’t go into details, but for weeks now racists and internet trolls have been infiltrating Zoom meetings to harass participants, sometimes with images of child porn. This happened to a San Francisco Bible-study session held over Zoom earlier this month in which many of the participants were senior citizens. The church is now suing Zoom.
On Twitter, you can also find reports of “Zoom-bombing” attacks involving the disturbing imagery. “Some random person showed up and suddenly there was awful childporn on the screen. Cant believe what I saw, cant stop crying,” wrote one user on April 21. Others have reported the culprits crashing Zoom classes attended by young students.
In response, federal agents are trying to apprehend the hijackers. “The FBI considers this activity to be a violent crime, as every time child sexual abuse material is viewed, the depicted child is re-victimized,” the agency said. “Furthermore, anyone who inadvertently sees child sexual abuse material depicted during a virtual event is potentially a victim as well.”
If you have been Zoom-bombed with child porn, the FBI is asking that you report the incident to the agency and preserve any evidence of the crime, which federal investigators can collect from your computer.
The FBI is also reminding the public to secure their Zoom meetings from potential hijackers. “Do not share a link to a teleconference or classroom on an unrestricted, publicly available social media post. Provide the link directly to specific attendees,” the FBI said. For more tips on securing your Zoom sessions, consult our guide.
In a statement, Zoom told PCMag the company is trying to educate users on the video conferencing software’s security features, which you can learn more about on Zoom’s website. “We urge users to report any incidents of this kind either to Zoom so we can take appropriate action or directly to law enforcement authorities,” the company added. “We have a dedicated trust and safety team that uses a mix of tools to proactively identify accounts that may be in violation. If we find a violation, we take a number of actions depending on the situation, which may include terminating meetings, cancelling user accounts, and, where appropriate, notifying relevant law enforcement authorities.”
