Hackers bombed South African Parliament session with porn, racial slurs
What's the story
Like most of the world, South Africa is also under lockdown to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus disease. Most of the people in the country, including lawmakers, are using technology to stay virtually connected and continue with their work. But, just recently, one such crucial meeting, a session of the Parliament of South Africa, was bombed with porn. Here's all about it.
Incident
Parliament session hijacked, explicit images shared
On Thursday, a virtual session between South Africa's parliamentary lawmakers was set to begin. But, just before all the participants could join, an unknown party popped in and disrupted the meeting - by flooding it with pornographic images and racial, sexist slurs targeted at Thandi Modise, the meeting's chairwoman and the speaker of the National Assembly.
Action
Then, the meeting was adjourned, resumed on another platform
As the hijacker compromised the meeting, Modise adjourned the session and asked all the participants to shift to another video-conferencing service. The "meeting was temporarily disrupted by so-called 'bombers' or hackers," parliamentary spokesman Moloto Mothapo told AFP. "But (it) continued afterward on a different platform." Reports suggest Modise had earlier warned against using Zoom for parliamentary meetings.
Second incident
Second such incident in recent weeks
Notably, this is not the first South African Parliament meeting to be compromised by hackers. Last month, a session convened by Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, was also bombed with pornographic content. It's unclear if Zoom will be banned but reports indicate House Chairman Cedric Frolick has floated the idea of getting a more secure conferencing solution.
Unsafe
Indian government has already declared Zoom as "unsafe"
In light of these so-called 'zoom-bombing' incidents and several other security loopholes, Zoom has drawn a lot of flak, with its use being banned by leading public and private organizations. This includes corporate giants like SpaceX and Google as well as government organizations, including NASA, the Indian government, the Taiwanese government, the German Foreign Ministry, and the Australian Defense Force.