At least sixty children were subjected to footage of child sexual abuse streamed into their fitness session on the Zoom video conference app. The class was being hosted by a sports club in Plymouth, Devon, The Guardian reported.

According to the local police cited in the Guardian report, the hacker gained access to the virtual class after the details of it were published online. The security force is now probing the matter and trying to trace the hacker.

Det Insp Lesley Bulley, who is leading the investigation, said to Guardian: “We are progressing inquiries to identify the suspect in this distressing offense. We are working closely with Plymouth safeguarding children’s partnership and I request that if you have been affected by this then you come forward so we can provide the necessary advice and support.”

Security settings

The administration later issued an advisory asking people to ensure that only the host can share material in the video conference in order to prevent unauthorized access.

Grahame Mace, a cyber-protection officer, quoted as saying in the Guardian report: “Keeping in touch with our friends and family is vital during this period of lockdown. But please ensure when setting up video conferencing sessions that you follow the guidelines on keeping your sessions private.

“First and foremost understand what security settings you have implemented and are available for your software, don’t leave yourself or others vulnerable, lock it down and keep the criminals out.”

The NSPCC children’s charity raised concerns over a worrying pattern of meetings held on Zoom being “bombed” with images of child sexual abuse.

Child safety

After continuous complaints of hackable Zoom, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) asked people to supervise their children when using Zoom and urging conference organizers to take steps to secure meeting details and passwords.

Andy Burrows, the NSPCC’s head of child safety online policy, said: “There appears to be a deeply disturbing trend emerging. While the responsibility for this lies with those uploading this terrible footage, it’s important to take precautions to lessen the risks posed to children and adults, including not sharing full meeting details and passwords on social media and only providing them to people you trust.

“Zoom needs to urgently act to protect their users, while all tech firms providing video conferencing services must immediately set out how they are responding to these very real risks.”

A spokesperson for Zoom mentioned to the Guardian: “This incident is truly devastating and appalling, and our user policies explicitly prohibit any obscene, indecent, illegal or violent activity or content on the platform.

“We are looking into this specific incident to ensure the appropriate action is taken. Zoom strongly condemns such behavior and recently updated several features to help our users more easily protect their meetings.

Zoom has lately announced a new update in its security app. It mentioned that the tool will add new security features for Personal Meeting IDs (PMIs) for all Basic accounts. With the new update, Zoom will require passwords on all Basic accounts. It also said that the defaults for waiting rooms on and screen share will be only for hosts.

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