MILWAUKEE -- An unidentified user briefly hijacked the Milwaukee Election Commission's Zoom meeting Sunday, taking over the screen and sharing graphic imagery.
The meeting had been scheduled for 2 p.m. to discuss a number of absentee ballots that were returned without postmarks.
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About twenty minutes into the meeting, the user took over the Zoom meeting and began using the screen share feature to display graphic images that were radical, violent, and pornographic in nature.
The meeting was eventually suspended as Commissioner Neil Albrecht fought to control the situation.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Zoom wrote, "We have been deeply upset to hear about these types of incidents. Zoom strongly condemns such behavior and has recently made several updates to help our users more easily protect their meetings. Please see here for the latest updates - https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/04/08/zoom-product-updates-new-security-toolbar-icon-for-hosts-meeting-id-hidden/ - which includes adding a "Security" icon to give hosts easy access to several features in one place, including the ability to remove participants and lock meetings, among others. Zoom is continuing to engage with all of our users on how they can best use Zoom and protect their meetings, and we encourage users to report any incidents of this kind directly to Zoom so we can take appropriate action."
Terrence McGraw, the president of cybersecurity company PC Matic, said although this meeting was password protected, that's not enough to stop outside forces. He suggests establishing a waiting room, among adjusting other privacy settings.
"A waiting room allows you to have folks invited but then the host or the admin of the meeting then allows individual participants on," McGraw said.
Lisa Schiller with the Better Business Bureau of Wisconsin said it sent out tips last week to help protect people from zoom bombing. https://www.bbb.org/article/business/21965-bbb-alert-zoom-bombing
"BBB is strongly encouraging hosts to review their settings and confirm that they can only share their screen, and this will hopefully prevent any outside disruption from the main video feed," Schiller said.