A porn 'Zoom-bomber' hijacked an online conference with a Federal Reserve governor
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- A virtual meeting with a Federal Reserve governor was canceled after being "Zoom-bombed", per Reuters.
- The intruder showed porn images on the call, which had more than 200 participants.
- The hacker displayed the images a few minutes before the conference was due to start.
A virtual conference with a member of the Federal Reserve's board of governors was hijacked by a "Zoom-bomber" who showed porn images, Reuters reported.
The Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America (MBCA) was forced to cancel the online event Thursday with Christopher Waller after an intruder joined the call and displayed explicit images.
More than 200 people were logged on when the conference was "Zoom-bombed." One participant with the display name "Dan" started showing porn photos a few minutes before the event started, according to a Reuters reporter who was in the meeting.
"Zoom-bombing" is where a virtual call is interrupted by users who are uninvited and gatecrash a meeting.
"We were a victim of a teleconference, or Zoom, hijacking and we are trying to understand what we need to do going forward to prevent this from ever happening again. It is an incident we deeply regret," executive director of the MBCA, Brent Tjarks, told Reuters.
He said the incident was a first for the organization and thought incorrect settings for muting participants may be to blame.
The FBI issued a warning about Zoom-bombing in March 2020, advising that meetings should be made private with a password to gain access, and not to post links on social media.
The caution came after some hackers joined school classes and in one case displayed swastika tattoos. In another incident in 2020, trolls joined Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and told participants in recovery that "alcohol is soooo good."
The rise of Zoom meetings and subsequent Zoom-bombing during the pandemic led the company to place a 90-day freeze on new features in April 2020 while it focused on bolstering the platform's security.
Zoom spokesman Matt Nagel told Reuters in a statement: "We have been deeply upset to hear about these types of incidents, and Zoom strongly condemns such behavior."
He said the company took such incidents "extremely seriously" and worked with law enforcement when needed.
The MBCA and Zoom did not respond to requests for comment from Insider.