BRAAA Zoom Call Hacked

By Gordon HopkinsMembers of the governing board of Blue Rivers Area Agency on Aging (BRAAA) were holding a meeting via Zoom on Monday, March 23, when the call was interrupted by hackers.BRAAA serves southeast Nebraska’s elderly community in Jefferson, Gage, Johnson, Nemaha, Otoe, Pawnee, Richardson and Thayer counties. Zoom is an online teleconferencing platform that has seen a substantial increase in use over the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also become a regular target of internet hackers. While some attempts to hack Zoom are intended to steal private information or deliver malware (malicious programs), many are simply pranks or attempts to spread messages and propaganda.These attacks have been dubbed “Zoombombing.” In 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a warning, “The FBI has received multiple reports of conferences being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language.”Victims of these hacks include video conferences and online classrooms.According to Jefferson County Commissioner Mark Schoenrock, who is also on the BRAAA board, just such a hack occurred during the meeting. Attendees were bombarded with what Schoenrock described as “derogatory” statements and images. He declined to go into detail. The attack did not last long. Schoenrock said as soon as they realized what was happening, attendees logged off. Schoenrock said, “We had to cut the meeting and re-establish a new Zoom link. Fortunately, the hackers were not able to follow that trace and we were able to conduct our meeting. So you hear about that at the national level. But let me tell you, we’re all interconnected in this 21st century. And they’re out there, and they want to do evil.” While the origin of the hack has not been confirmed, Schoenrock indicated he believed it to be Russian in origin, as several of the uninvited presented names or handles written in Cyrillic, or Russian, alphabet.Earlier this month, a University of Nebraska Lincoln panel discussion on Ukraine was disrupted by possible Russian hackers. At a meeting of Jefferson County Commissioners on Tuesday, March 22, Schoenrock said, “We have taken significant steps to upgrade the cybersecurity of Jefferson County government. We spend a lot of taxpayer resources to improve our cybersecurity because, guess what, if our computers and our phones if all of our communication systems don’t work, all the services that we provide to Jefferson County citizens stop also.”

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