Hackers hijack Garland County Zoom meeting

Hackers crashed the Garland County Quorum Court Finance Committee’s meeting Monday night, bringing an abrupt end to the video conference.

The attack, which included profane, racist comments and images and the posting of a graphic video, started about 30 minutes into the Zoom call and continued for several minutes before the county could end the call. The county posted the meeting link on its website.

“I’m not sure what happened, but I don’t like it,” County Judge Darryl Mahoney said. “It was very disturbing. They could override anything we tried

to do, and by statute we have to provide that public link.”

Mahoney said County Attorney John Howard will call Zoom today for information on the attack.

“I’m also going to reach out to IT to see if there’s anything we can do to prevent that,” Mahoney said. “We rent that Zoom link and pay for each Zoom meeting. It’s public access. We put it out on our website. (The host) couldn’t mute them. They had some hacker skills.”

The meeting resumed at about 6:10 p.m. Justices of the peace who participated remotely listened on speakerphone. Almost all of the action items on the agenda, which included ordinances establishing the county’s 2021 budget and allocating part of the $2.35 million awarded to the county from the state’s federal coronavirus relief funding, were advanced to the full quorum court.

Mahoney said the quorum court will continue offering JPs the option of teleconferencing into meetings.

“With the (virus) numbers going up like they have been in the county, we’re trying to keep the meeting to a minimum so we can ensure everyone is socially distanced,” he said. “I’m giving everyone the option to attend by Zoom, but some of the people who live in the rural areas just can’t Zoom in.

“We’re going to try to continue offering that Zoom link until we get past this pandemic. I think it’s a good source for people to use, but we obviously have to get that problem straightened out.”