Pornographic video appeared during ‘Zoom bombing’ in a KY school virtual meeting

Last week in a webcast, Kentucky Education Commissioner Kevin Brown told superintendents about a “Zoom bombing” incident -- the appearance of a pornographic video on the platform --that recently occurred during a virtual meeting in the state as has happened across the nation.

The Zoom platform has become a popular way to conduct meetings during the coronavirus school shutdown and Brown is asking superintendents to exercise caution when using it.

Kentucky Department of Education spokeswoman Toni Konz Tatman said that the appearance of a pornographic video “zoom bombing” incident happened during a dual credit call hosted on Zoom by Southcentral Kentucky and Community and Technical College in Bowling Green.

When the meeting was interrupted last week by the video that appeared, the host closed it immediately and sent an apology immediately to the participants, Tatman said.

Rebecca Lee, a spokeswoman for the college, said Tuesday that the incident occurred during a live question and answer session on dual college and high school credit classes on April 3.

“Somebody, we don’t know who, took control of the Zoom presentation. They did post some obscene video. We are very thankful that the director immediately closed it out within seconds ended the presentation,” Lee said.

Lee said high school students and their families were invited as were educators, but college officials do not know if any high school students were among the 58 participants..

She said the college is no longer using Zoom and is now using the platforms Microsoft Teams or Skype.

The New York Times recently reported that as schools, businesses, and individuals have adopted the platform for meetings, reports of uninvited Zoom bombings are frequent. Zoom officials have told the Associated Press that it takes security of meetings seriously and that incidents should be reported directly to Zoom.

The Kentucky School Boards Association posted on its website last week that with virtual meetings becoming the new norm as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, millions of users are entering the online meeting space. Zoom bombings refers to uninvited and anonymous users who force their way into active Zoom meetings to disrupt them, the website said

The school board association’s guidance said meeting hosts should take precautionary steps by adjusting settings.

Jeremy Bates, president of the Kentucky Electronic Security Association, said on that group’s website that several privacy and security concerns with Zoom have been discovered as more of a mass population have begun using it in response to COVID-19.

Attackers are able to join without permission, Bates said. The attacker is then able to send a specially formatted link that could install malware on a local device. There are many other privacy concerns including sending graphic images, he said.

Tatman said Kentucky Department of Education uses the platform Microsoft Teams for most of its virtual meetings.

That, along with Google Meet, is available now at no cost to all of Kentucky’s K-12 schools and Educational Cooperatives and will continue to be available at no cost, she said.

Recently, Zoom announced that organizations and individuals can use their “free version” of Zoom for a limited amount of time, she said.

A percentage of school districts have chosen to use Zoom internally, Tatman said.

Nothing prevents a Kentucky school district from using Zoom to create and host a virtual meeting but department officials want them to be aware of the issues with the product, especially the free version of it, Tatman said.

This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 12:54 PM.