Apparently, someone gained access to an online Zoom class hosted by St Austin’s Academy and streamed pornography. It seems the “hack” happened at least a week ago and it has spiked some outrage on Twitter.

St Austin’s Academy Zoom ‘Hack’

Over to you @zoom_us and @MOESTKe pic.twitter.com/qpC2GE8WuY

— Boniface Mwangi (@bonifacemwangi) April 28, 2020

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Most of the responses are from teachers who may have experienced the same but the rest seem to be angling against the remarks that Zoom is to blame.

Fake alarm! Zoom has already corrected this zoom bombing issue. I teach every week via Zoom and no one can admit self in Zoom. The host has to admit every student. Let the complainant talk to the Zoom host, not @zoom_us

— Martin Munyao (@MartinM85602128) April 28, 2020

As of last week, the company seemingly responded to the #Zoombooming (people joining in Zoom calls without authorization.) They added some measures on how to prevent #zoombooming and the school looks to implement them.

Measures Against Video Call Hacking

Response from the school. Parents really need to keep tabs . pic.twitter.com/5iuLFhvvhs

— Jackie Arkle #WhyILoveKenya??? (@Jackie_Arkle) April 28, 2020

The school has accepted some fault to the situation. They note that the interruption was due to inconsistent settings on their platform. Therefore, they have put up a few guidelines to help keep the students safe and stop the same situation from happening again.

1. All the invitees must have a password so that no one can enter a meeting without a password specified for a teacher.
2. The teachers will enable a waiting room in the meeting so that they can be able to add everyone personally.
3. The school has also disabled screen sharing so that no one else can share content not acceptable to the rest
4. Only students using their official names will be let into a meeting.

By doing this we have ensured that the laid down security guidelines are always observed. Said The school

It is worth noting that despite Zooms’ inconsistencies in security, one should take precaution as much as possible. The same precautions should be taken for all school, work and family meetings on the platform. This should ensure your safety when you are in a call.

Unfortunately, Zoom does not put these settings as default so you have to set them yourself but it should not take more than 5 minutes to ensure your safety.

Facebook and Telegram recently announced that they would each be releasing more ‘secure’ video calling platforms and until that is done, stay safe on Zoom.