US Fed Reserve Zoom Conference Canceled After 'Porn-Bombing'
A Federal Reserve Zoom event with more than 220 people was canceled Thursday after a user hijacked proceedings and displayed pornographic content, Reuters reported(Opens in a new window).
The hijack left Fed Governor Christopher Waller unable to deliver his opening remarks because graphic images from a call participant named “Dan” began to pop up on the screen.
In a statement to Reuters, Brent Tjarks, executive director of the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America (MBCA) which hosted the Zoom event, said: "We were a victim of a teleconference or Zoom hijacking and we are trying to understand what we need to do going forward to prevent this from ever happening again. It is an incident we deeply regret. We have had various programs and this is something that we have never had happen to us.”
Tjarks added that he suspects a security switch for the Zoom event that would have muted users and prevented them from sharing their screens was incorrectly set, though he could not confirm.
The MBCA, whose roughly 100 members include banks with between $10 billion and $100 billion in assets, made the decision to cancel the event in conjunction with the Federal Reserve. The hijack meant the event was canceled minutes after the event had been scheduled to commence.
Zoom spokesman Matt Nagel told Reuters, “We have been deeply upset to hear about these types of incidents, and Zoom strongly condemns such behavior. We take meeting disruptions extremely seriously and, where appropriate, we work closely with law enforcement authorities.”
The Fed said the event had been canceled due to “technical difficulties.” The event had been due to feature a speech by Governor Waller on inflation and the economic-outlook into 2023, in addition to a
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