Church sues Zoom after alleged ‘Zoombombing’
Class-action suit seeks damages for millions
The company says the new version of Zoom, which was released April 27, makes it harder for meetings to be Zoombombed.
A California church is suing Zoom after a recent bible study class was “Zoombombed” with pornographic images.
Saint Paulus Lutheran Church, one of San Francisco’s oldest churches, filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the teleconferencing giant Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California.
According to the complaint filed on behalf of the church and HeddiN. Cundle, a church administrator, the attendees of the May 6 bible study class “had their computer screens hijacked and their control buttons disabled while being forced to watch pornographic video footages.”
Zoom didn’t immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment on the lawsuit, which seeks damages for Cundle, the eight class attendees and millions of Zoom users nationwide.
The San Jose-based online video provider has said it was tightening the platform’s security to help prevent instances of video conferences being interrupted by Zoombombing incidents.
Some of the most notorious cases involve educational classes and local government meetings being disrupted with images of pornography and racist symbols including swastikas.
As people have stayed at home during the coronavirus pandemic, more have begun using Zoom to connect via video and audio chats for work and to catch up with family and friends.
The company says the newversion of Zoom, which was released April 27, makes it harder for meetings to be Zoombombed with passwords and waiting rooms, which require passwords and a host to admit an attendee, being default settings. For educational users, screen sharing will default to the host only.
But some of the new features were already in place when the bible study class was Zoombombed on May 6 by someone who “has been reported multiple times to the authorities,” the suit alleges.
After ending the class, Cundle reached out to Zoom and “demanded action to rectify the situation and to improve security for future videoconferences. But Zoom did nothing.”
Zoom posted an update to its security measures Wednesday in a blog post, which noted more features are coming next week and later in the month.
By the end of May, Zoom plans for its platform to use tougher encryption, AES 256-bit GCM encryption, which Zoom says “offers increased protection of your meeting data in transit and resistance against tampering.” The standard can take effect once all Zoom accounts are updated, the company says.
An improved security feature will be accessible from an icon on the host’s interface and will include a “Report a User” option that notifies Zoom of intruders is expected to be released nextweek, Zoom saidWednesday.
Zoom also said in June itwould focus on “enhancements to theWaiting Room feature, passwords, and more ways to leverage these two features together” and exploring “additional screen share controls for meeting hosts.”