Zoombombing: when strangers crashed the video calls

The story

When the COVID-19 pandemic sent people home in March 2020, schools, businesses, churches and community groups moved their meetings to video calls, often for the first time and with default settings.

People began joining meetings they were not invited to and disrupting them with offensive images, noise or abuse. The practice got a name, Zoombombing, after the most widely used service, though it happened on others too.

Many meeting links had been posted publicly on social media or school websites. Some could be found with a simple web search. Some disruptions were organized in online forums, and some students shared their own class links.

The FBI advised keeping meetings private, requiring a password or a waiting room, and limiting who could share their screen. The video service changed its default settings to require passwords and waiting rooms.

Why it mattered

Zoombombing showed what happens when a whole society adopts a new tool overnight with default settings and links shared in public. The service changed its defaults, and passwords and waiting rooms became normal for meetings. It was a lesson that settings chosen for convenience are worth a second look before anything goes wrong.

The lesson today

Most of these intrusions were not hacking. They were open doors. Meeting links work like keys: anyone who has one can try it. Lobbies, passcodes and limits on what guests can do keep meetings to the people who belong in them.