Being careful about making conference information public knowledge and digging a little deeper into the platform's settings can help you avoid an attack.

People share conference IDs and passwords on social media, granting access to just about anybody. While many companies blame the platform for the problem, it's the users, who make such attacks possible. Why do hackers, trolls, and prankers have such an easy time accessing Zoom calls? The reason is carelessness. Unless Zoom users take precautions, attackers can disrupt anything from a private family chat or an Alcoholics Anonymous conference to a high-level government meeting. However, many similar incidents have been happening to adult users as well.įor example, about a month ago, uninvited guests disrupted WFH Happy Hour (a public Zoom call hosted by reporter Casey Newton and investor Hunter Walk) by bombarding the participants with sexual video content. School attacks are the most disturbing examples of Zoombombing since they concern children. The unidentified visitor displayed swastika tattoos to the conference participants.Īt about the same time, a school in Oslo, Norway decided to stop using Zoom after an attacker joined an online lesson and appeared naked on video in front of 9-year old students. In March, a Massachusetts high school reported a Zoombombing A teacher was holding an online class using the app when an unknown user joined in and started yelling profanities, thus disrupting the learning process.Ī couple of days later, another Massachusetts school reported a similar attack. This limited their options substantially since the platform provides a top-notch experience with diverse possibilities. That's why many companies and organizations decided to stop using Zoom for conferences and meetings. Sitting in on an important meeting could give the pranker access to sensitive information. However, these attacks have graver potential. The goal of Zoombombing is usually a few cheap laughs at the legitimate users' expense. Attackers share explicit content or hurl profanities thus ruining the conference and disturbing the participants. Zoombombing involves uninvited people joining a Zoom conference and trying to disrupt it.

Let's look a little closer into what Zoombombing is and discuss easy ways to prevent it. App users faced a phenomenon called Zoombombing.

The rise in popularity led to the rise in fraud. Since Zoom is a highly efficient video-conferencing platform, many companies, organizations, and private users started taking full advantage of it. With the COVID-19 pandemic landing people at home, the popularity of video-conferencing software has sharply increased.

Zoombombing examples