Zoom session reportedly hijacked during geography class in Singapore

As if the controversy surrounding the video conferencing app couldn't get any worse, BBC now reports a serious incident involving the app during a geography class in Singapore.

With Singapore being one of many countries to close their schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers and students took to video conferencing apps like Zoom to continue their education.

Yesterday, Singapore's Ministry of Education suspended the use of Zoom over "breaches involving obscene images," local media Channel News Asia writes, along with information from the testimony of Ms Loh, mother of a student that was in the Zoom session when the accident occured.

Apparently, during a geography class with around 40 students, two men were able to join in, and make obscene comments towards the female students present. Although Log's daughter didn't "make a big deal of it," she informed her mother, who was understandably concerned. The teacher had the Zoom session immediately terminated, though "the damage was done."

Zoom has since told BBC that the company is "deeply upset" about the incident. It's not revealed yet how the men gained access to the class. Zoom sessions have nine-digit IDs, and it's possible that the teacher didn't lock the session in question behind a password.

Singapore government officials are currently investigating the breach, while use of Zoom for teaching sessions is now suspended, until its security issues are ironed out.

Zoom has been dealing with bad PR for a while now, and recently invited a Facebook ex-security chief to help the company handle its privacy-related challenges and stockpiling bans.

Over the course of one week, Zoom got banned from being used at SpaceX, Google, the US Senate, and public schools in New York. It still remains among the most popular video conferencing services, together with Google Meet, Skype for Business and Slack, among others.