Singapore suspends Zoom after obscene images stun students

Teachers in Singapore will suspend the use of video conferencing tool Zoom, following breaches involving obscene images, the Ministry of Education said.

Just days ago Hong Kong's Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data advised users to switch off  the Chinese company's video-conferencing tool if  they fear security risks.

Taiwan has banned Zoom.

Zoom founder Eric Yuan, the son of mining engineers in China’s eastern Shandong province, once ran engineering for Cisco’s Webex video-conferencing business, Forbes has reported.

In Singapore, the Education Ministry said it is currently investigating the breaches, which it described as "serious incidents,'' Channel News Asia reports.

“As a precautionary measure, our teachers will suspend their use of Zoom until these security issues are ironed out,” said Mr Aaron Loh, divisional director of the Educational Technology Division at the ministry.

A parent, who wanted to be known as Ms Loh, told CNA that her daughter, who is in Secondary 1, was in a home-based geography lesson on Zoom when obscene images appeared on the screen.

Two men asked female students who were present to flash themselves, she added.

Ms Loh, 47, a civil servant said that her daughter, who studies in a school in the eastern part of Singapore, told her about the incident.

“I am really glad she shared with me the incident. She seemed to try not to make a big deal of it, but I told her she should be afraid of such incidents, because this is not normal, and maybe even illegal,” she said.

Ms Loh said that the teacher immediately terminated the session, but “the damage was done”.

“The class, or at least my daughter, saw the lewd photos, and heard what the Caucasian guys asked,” she said.

Singapore is not the only country to be affected by the teleconferencing disruptions. The FBI issued a warning on March 30 advising users to avoid making Zoom meetings public after it received multiple reports of teleconferences and online classrooms being disrupted by hackers displaying hate messages or shouting profanities, Associated Press reports.

Part of the “Zoombombing” problem occurs because users tend to create public meetings out of convenience. That allows anyone to join a meeting as long as they 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,” he said.

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 these attacks.”

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