Zoom Meetings Hacked With Racial Slurs and Pornography; Zoom CEO Says: “I think this is a mistake and lesson learned”

Since the coronavirus outbreak, the stay in place order has caused a rise in video conferencing. The numbers for the popular app Zoom have skyrocketed, with users increasing from about 10 million to hundreds of millions. But amid the increase, the FBI is warning about reports of people hacking into Zoom calls with pornographic or hate images.

CBS interviewed Zoom’s CEO, Eric Yuan, along with a Long Island mother whose daughter was a victim of an online attack.

In the interview, Michelle said that her 14-year-old daughter was in a class for her modern orthodox high school, which is also a private all-girls school when a hacker “Zoom-bombed” it.

“First, the screens were completely black, and they were saying all these anti-Semitic things, cursing them out, saying you F-ing Jews, et cetera. And then one boy suddenly stripped and was naked,” Michelle said.

She said her daughter was shaken up and embarrassed. “She was very embarrassed by it. And she just said, ‘I can’t talk about it.”

Yuan revealed that his company wasn’t ready for the huge rise in the number of new users.

“I think this is a mistake and lesson learned,” he said.

Yuan added that businesses that are using Zoom require employees to use passwords, which is something that first-time users don’t typically do.

“Is it fair, though, to blame the users? Doesn’t the company have a responsibility to protect them on the front end? You know, given that you guys are the experts on your own system,” A reporter named Anna Werner asked Yuan, to which he answered, saying, “Absolutely right, I think that’s why I say we do not do a good job.”

“When we offer the free service, we should have a training session, we should enable a password… Looking back, we should have done that. Absolutely. This our oversight,” Yuan added.

Donnell Williams, another victim of a hacker attack, is the head of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers. There were more than 200 people in his zoom conference meeting when a hacker drew a picture of male genitalia on the screen and made racist remarks.

“And then the slurs, I mean, using the N-word. I mean, in front of all of my attendees, the people in our community,” Williams said.

“I think there’s going to be a brand hit, without a doubt,” Thompson from Wired magazine said. “People are gonna have a few negative connotations about Zoom bombs and privacy failures for a long time with this company.”

On the flip side, Thompson added that most people still want the service, including the people that were interviewed for this story.

“I don’t blame Zoom one bit,” Michelle said. “This was a bad experience for these children. Hopefully, it won’t happen again, for sure.”

Zoom’s CEO said to CBS News that he is going to take action against the “unforeseen issues” that have occurred. Passwords now have to be created for all users, and K-12 schools have to take additional security steps.