Zoombombing Attacks Disturb Perludem's Discussion On Cybersecurity In The 2020 Pilkada

Ilustrasi peretasan (Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay)

JAKARTA - The zoombombing attack disrupted the course of Public Discussions regarding cybersecurity in the 2020 Pilkada technology held by Perludem. The discussion, which had only been running for about 30 minutes, was suddenly filled with scribbles and sighing sounds.

The zoombombing attack interfered with the initial explanation from Member of the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) Mochammad Afifuddin regarding cyber security in the 2020 Pilkada. Judging from the reruns of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) on its YouTube channel, the perpetrators began scribbling on Afifuddin's slides.

Zoombombing attack in the 2020 Pilkada discussions (YouTube screenshot Perludem)

"Now I don't know how these scribbles can be like this," said Afif when discussing cyber threats related to elections in a number of countries and Indonesia, during the Perludem discussion, Sunday, July 19.

Afif's presentation material shared through Zoom was filled with scribbles, including pictures that resemble male genitalia. The zoombombing actor also inserted a woman's voice during the discussion.

"This is extraordinary, discussing cybersecurity again and then being attacked in this way," continued Afif, who could not take over his presentation material.

The discussion committee immediately tried to delete the shared slide show and advised Afif not to activate the share screen while making a presentation. Finally, Afif continued his presentation without displaying the presentation slides.

The term Zoombombing itself is a hacking action by someone claiming to be a participant in an online discussion. This action often disrupts the course of video conferences by sending indecent images or hate speech.

Previously, a zoombombing incident occurred during a National Information and Communication Technology Council (Wantiknas) meeting which was held via the Zoom video conference application. At that time the intruder hijacked the discussion by displaying indecent pictures.

In fact, the video conferencing application Zoom has provided an update to the security system on its platform due to the rampant zoombombing action. It is claimed that this update Zoom will have encryption support that is much more secure than before.