San Francisco: A virtual event with Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller was canceled on Thursday after a Zoom video conference was “hijacked” by a participant who displayed pornographic images.
“We were the victim of a teleconference or Zoom hijacking and we are trying to understand what we need to do next to prevent this from happening again. This is an incident that we deeply regret,” said Brent Tjarks, executive director of the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America (MBCA), which hosted the event via Zoom link. “We’ve had many events and this is something that has never happened to us.”
He said he suspected that one of the safety switches that muted bystanders had been set incorrectly, but he was not yet sure of the details. The decision to cancel was made in consultation with the Fed after infighting.
Minutes before the event began, a participant using the screen name “Dan” began displaying graphic, pornographic images, according to a Reuters reporter on the call.
The microphone and video were not muted by the organizer upon joining.
At one point over 220 participants were on the Zoom call before the call ended. Two spokespeople for Zoom did not immediately respond to calls requesting comment.
Use zoom mushroom during epidemic. It also came under fire for privacy and security issues, including incidents of “Zoom bombing” in which uninvited users entered and disrupted meetings.
In March 2020, the Boston office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a warning about Zoom, stating that users should not make meetings on the site public or The link should not be shared widely.
In response to the disruptions, Zoom rolled out major upgrades, including end-to-end encryption for video calls.
The Fed said the event, which included a speech by Waller as well as a question-and-answer session, was canceled due to “technical difficulties”.
Fed events are usually highly choreographed and security is usually tight.
The MBCA’s roughly 100 members include banks with assets between $10 billion and $100 billion.
(Reporting by Ann Safir in San Francisco and Howard Schneider in Washington; Additional reporting by Jane Lee and Peter Henderson; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Sandra Maler)
Disclaimer: This report is generated automatically from Reuters news service. ThePrint is not responsible for its content.
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