Normally we’d start something like this off by saying ‘Only in South Africa’ but… zoombombing isn’t only in South Africa. This is just the most high profile incident so far. A National Assembly meeting today, hosted on video conference platform Zoom, was zoombombed using racial slurs and images of pornography, cancelling the meeting and necessitating a change of platform.

Knowing is half the battle

If the MPs or their meeting organisers had bothered to read Stuff, this might not have happened. There are several ways to keep your Zoom meetings (relatively) safe from intruders, provided you take the time to update your software and settings beforehand. That, obviously, was not done.

Members of Parliament (MPs) who joined this morning’s 09:00 National Assembly Zoom meeting were greeting with porn and racial remarks as the meeting was apparently ‘hacked’. It’s far more likely it was a) unsecured or b) the link for the meeting was leaked beforehand. The Zoom meeting was abandoned, in favour of another one using Microsoft Teams.

This isn’t the first government meeting to be disrupted in this manner. A meeting in April, headed by Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane saw pornography broadcast to attendees as well. Not ayoba.

Source: IOL