After last week’s Zoom-bombing debacle during a Senate Agriculture committee meeting, which featured porn and racial slurs, Satehouse IT security has been ratcheted up to keep similar interruptions from happening again.
Which becomes more essential now as the Senate and House chambers move into remote voting procedures.
Kevin Moore, director of Statehouse IT, said that since the incident, multiple security “layers” have been added to Zoom calls to keep interrupters at bay.
He said all Zoom meetings are now requiring another layer of user authentication after someone has signed into a meeting. This could have blocked last week’s bombing, because it seems that Sen. Chris Pearson, P/D-Chittenden, was the leak.
According to an interview with Seven Days, Pearson inadvertently shared the wrong access link on Twitter, allowing outside users to enter the call.
Moore said Zoom meeting hosts are also required to use a waiting room feature, so that even if an intruder bypasses those first layers of security, hosts will still be able to control who gets to enter a meeting.
The incident is currently being investigated by the Statehouse Capitol Police, according to Matt Romei, Capitol Police chief. He said IT staff are still collecting any information they can find about who intruded the meeting and from where.
“I’m confident that the measures that are in place will keep this from happening again,” Romei said. “But the weakest link is always the human factor. If you don’t lock your door you’re not taking all the steps you can to prevent somebody from coming in.”
Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, said that now that these heightened security measures are in place, he thinks the “odds are low” a remote voting session could be interrupted similarly.
A rule change to allow remote voting is being voted on this Wednesday in the Senate chamber. Like the last time the Senate convened a few weeks ago to pass an emergency Covid-19 bill package, just enough lawmakers will be present for a quorum, and spread about the room, to pass the rule.
And while he thinks the chances of another Zoom-bombing occurring is low, Ashe said the risk is one that the Legislature needs to prepare for now that its work is primarily virtual. If the Senate is bombed during a voting session, Ashe said they will immediately adjourn, and pick up on a more secure line.
“The odds are low, but it could happen. Just like it could happen in the Senate chamber and a member of the public could do something inappropriate, awkward or intrusive,” Ashe said. “It opens the virtual door for people anywhere in the world to hack into proceedings.”
– Grace Elletson
