I Was Zoom-Bombed On a Career Chat and It Wasn’t Pretty!

Update from Zoom
As of April 4, 2020, Zoom has enabled the Waiting Room feature and will require additional password settings for all Basic users on free accounts and accounts with a single licensed user, including K-12 education accounts who have the 40-minute limit temporarily waived. The new password requirements apply to both meetings and webinars.
Since the onset of COVID-19, and realizing that some job seekers and employees are facing anxiety and uncertainty, I decided to host a few weekly Casual Career Chats where I would answer questions about job losses, job search, career transition. résumés, etc. I invited three of my colleagues, Maureen McCann, Michelle Precourt, and Christine Cristiano to be a part of the panel answering the questions.
The first Zoom meeting was on March 27 and it went without a hitch. Last Friday, April 3, I logged into the meeting a few minutes early to give us (the members of the panel) a chance to chat before the 3:00 pm start. Suddenly, I saw a message that my screen was being shared, and in seconds the vilest of pornography started broadcasting, interspersed with the N-word. At the time, my daughter and her son were in the adjacent room, and she shouted, “Mom, what’s that I am hearing?” They were not online and didn’t see the images, so I quickly explained what was happening.
As one can imagine, the invasion of my screen startled me. I was in shock as I grappled to find a way to end the nightmare. Eventually, I gained some semblance of composure and clicked on “End Meeting for All.” Assuming it was an error, I re-started the meeting a few minutes later, and in a flash, the pornography began again. I immediately terminated the meeting.
In speaking with my colleagues afterwards, I learned for the first time about Zoom-bombing. One shared a link to an FBI article on the subject (which is posted below). Prior to the article, I had only heard about the lack of proper security on Zoom, but I didn’t pay it much attention because I have had a Zoom account for years, and never had a problem.
After the conversation with my colleagues, I proceeded to do a bit of research, and what I discovered was horrifying. There has been a litany of incidences where hackers have been bombarding online classrooms (from kindergarten to university), primarily targeting people of colour. A young African American man was defending his PhD dissertation via Zoom when his screen was infiltrated. An article in last Friday’s USA Today summarizes what happened to K’Andre Miller, a hockey prospect for the New York Rangers. An online community gathering by a Jewish high school in Vancouver was also invaded. These type of incidences have escalated since COVID-19 when the use of the Zoom app ballooned from 10 million users in December 2019 to 200 million now.
A half hour after my incident, and without contacting Zoom, I received a “Dear Valued Customer” email from them. It advised me of what they were doing to tighten security and outlined safeguards I should put in place.
I spoke with the Peel Regional Police Communications Bureau to find out what they knew about Zoom-bombing. The woman I spoke with hadn’t heard of it, but her colleague had. I then called the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). They had heard about it and urged me to take greater security measures.
Putting the onus on me to adhere to Zoom’s security protocol is not a problem. But, let’s face it, this infiltration of my screen speaks to a larger issue: RACISM! And before anyone hastens to dismiss my pronouncement, let me say this: whenever someone tells you they have experienced racism, believe them. Don’t be too quick to write it off as “playing the race card.” It’s too easy to resort to that and then miss the opportunity to have a civil discourse on the topic.
Many of us shy away from such discussions because it’s uncomfortable. It’s uncomfortable because race is a social construct that places people in boxes, or on a hierarchy that presupposes one group is more, or less, than the other. Herein lies the problem. It’s awkward to argue such a concept, but if we are not prepared to have a candid discussion about racism, we will continue to perpetuate this fallacy.
Many years ago I was invited to speak to a group of university students in a women’s studies class. Of the 50 students, 3 were non-white. During the Q&A, one student asked me if I had ever faced racism. I smiled, then said, “If I tell you I haven’t, I would be lying. I have had my share, but I never allow racism to stop me from doing whatever I want to do or going wherever I want to go. If it means going up, down, sideways or plowing through, I am going to get there. Obstacles may slow me down, but nothing is going to stop me.”
That has always been my approach. Probably it’s because of my Jamaican background, where we don’t cringe when faced with obstacles like these. We deal with the elephant in the room if it raises its head, and then move on. And, by the way, sometimes the racism is not as blatant as the Zoom-bombing experience. Sometimes it’s the microaggressions that we face in our workplaces, schools, and communities, both on- and offline. They are real!
There I was, with my colleagues, offering free career advice to job seekers and people who feel uncertain and lost during this COVID-19 scare and someone (or some group) decided that invading my online space with pornography and racist taunts was more important. I don’t get angry very often, but this time I did. However, I won’t focus on the anger lest we miss the point of the real issue.
I know what I am saying is not at all comfy, but it is not meant to be. Sometimes we just have to call a spade a spade! That said, I am not going to allow trolls to stop me from doing my work. The Casual Career Chat will continue for a couple more weeks as was intended, but with a different set of security protocols in place.
As I conclude this piece, I want to say that I am privileged to have built relationships, and to serve a client base, comprised of diverse races and cultures. I am the better from the experiences, and I am confident my clients and connections would say the same. But this should — and will not — prevent me from calling out racism when I see it, and this one hit close to home.
Related Posts
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CNN’s Interview with Zoom’s CEO Eric Yuan
Zoombombing Attack Left Doctoral Candidate Shaken
FBI Warns of Teleconferencing and Online Classroom Hijacking
This article originally appeared on LinkedIn, April 6, 2020.
Daisy Wright is a Certified Career Management Coach and the Chief Encouragement Officer at The Wright Career Solution, where she helps executives, managers, and mid-career professionals tell their career stories and get hired faster. She is the author of two books, including the highly-acclaimed No Canadian Experience, Eh?: A Career Success Guide for New Immigrants. Daisy is a founding member of Career Professionals of Canada, a CPC advisory board member, and a Certified Résumé Strategist.
Photo by Rapisan Swangphon on 123RF