Singapore stops Zoom for online education as hackers strike

Singapore has suspended use of Zoom for online education after hackers hijacked a lesson and showed obscene ims to students.

In what is kwn as “Zoombombing,” two hackers interrupted a geography lesson a day after Singapore closed schools on Wednesday as part of partial lockdown measures to curb local transmissions of COVID-19.

Lessons have moved online, with some teachers using video conferencing tools like Zoom.

Singapore’s Ministry of Education said it was investigating “serious incidents” and may file police reports.

“We are alrey working with Zoom to enhance its security settings and make se security measures clear and easy to follow,” said Aaron Loh, director of ministry’s Educational Techlogy Division.

“As a precautionary measure, our teachers will suspend ir use of Zoom until se security issues are ironed out.”

Singapore is t only country affected by teleconferencing disruptions. FBI issued a public warning on March 30 vising users to avoid making Zoom meetings public after it received multiple reports of teleconferences and online classrooms being hijacked, with hackers displaying hate messs or shouting profanities.

Part of “Zoombombing” problem occurs because users tend to create public meetings out of convenience, which allow anyone to join a meeting as long as y have a link for it, according to Michael Gazeley, managing director and co-founder of cybersecurity firm Network Box.

“Details of conferences are often given out in a public manner, because organizers want as many attendees as possible,” said Gazeley.

“With Zoom, it was possible to set up meetings without passwords, so of course many people did just that. Whenever humans are given a choice between convenience and security, convenience almost always wins.”

Following increase in hacking incidents, Zoom implemented stronger security measures last week, such as enabling passwords and virtual waiting rooms for users.

“We have been deeply upset by increasing reports of harassment on our platform and strongly condemn such behavior,” a Zoom company spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

“We are listening to our community of users to help us evolve our approach and help our users guard against se attacks.”

Security researchers previously found software vulnerabilities in Zoom, in particular for Mac users where hackers could take over a user’s webcam feed. Zoom has since fixed issue.