At least four "Zoom bombings" affected public state board meetings in recent months, according to Indiana’s Professional Licensing Agency.
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At least four state meetings were brought to a halt in recent months after online intruders broadcasted “pornographic content” and “KKK imagery.”
The disruptions — often referred to as “Zoom bombings” — took place over Zoom and WebEx, according to Indiana’s Professional Licensing Agency (PLA).
The “isolated incidents” occurred during various professional licensing board, commission and committee meetings beginning in October 2024, said Emily Cox, a PLA spokesperson. Pornographic content was displayed during three incidents and KKK imagery was displayed during one, Cox said.
At least one intrusion took place this month during a state psychology board meeting. Another incident affected an early March gathering of the Indiana Real Estate Appraisers Board.
All the meetings were open and accessible to the public both in-person and online.
“In these cases, the board director or assistant board director for each board, commission, or committee shut down the meeting streams immediately, removing the offender,” Cox told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “When the meetings were restarted with the appropriate security settings in place there were no other incidents.”
The offenders remain unknown.
Cox said the incidents “did not involve hacking,” given that online attendees “had the ability to join meetings and share their screens.”
Video recordings of all PLA meetings are streamed and available on the agency’s YouTube channel, as required by a state law that officially takes effect July 1.
But “given its nature,” Cox said the “inappropriate material” displayed during meetings is still being edited out of the recordings before being uploaded publicly.
Cox said IOT staff are not present during PLA meetings or involved in online streams, but emphasized that “these incidents can be prevented.”
In response to the most recent intrusions, the agency’s IT director “sent out reminders to all board, committee, and commission directors and assistant directors to enable the appropriate security settings when starting a meeting.”
These aren’t the first “Zoom bombing” incidents to affect official business in Indiana, though.
In April 2020, for example, an Indiana Election Commission meeting conducted via Zoom was interrupted by unauthorized participants displaying pornographic material. Multiple other state and local meetings — as well as online K-12 and university classes — have since reported similar incidents.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when many public meetings shifted online, the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies specially warned about Zoom bombings and advised that virtual meetings not be made public.
Rather, they advised to make meetings private by requiring a meeting password or use the waiting room feature to control the admittance of guests. The justice department further cautioned against sharing links to a teleconference via social media posts; instead, officials recommended that links be shared directly with specific people.
Meeting hosts were additionally advised to change screensharing options in Zoom to “Host Only,” meaning participants would not have the ability to share their screens — or any other content — with other attendees.
While useful in classrooms, those recommendations can be harder to implement for public government meetings, which are required by law to be accessible to the public.
Although an Indiana law adopted in 2021 requires public bodies like state boards and school boards to report cybersecurity incidents to the Indiana Office of Technology (IOT), the statute does not address Zoom bombings or similar incidents.
Some states have taken more direct action, including Michigan, which in 2021 passed a law to make “Zoom bombing” — or interfering with a teleconference — a felony. The charge is punishable by up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
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Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.
