A virtual meeting of the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission was interrupted Thursday by a suspected cyber attack in which pornography briefly appeared in the meeting’s live stream.
Commission members met Thursday afternoon at the RSA Building in Montgomery to discuss the ongoing legal battle related to Alabama’s rollout of medical marijuana, a meeting that was broadcast live via Zoom. At around the 40-minute mark, the stream was interrupted by a ten-second clip of pornography and lewd language.
Commission members abruptly stopped talking when the clip began to play. Once the clip stopped, commission members carried on with their agenda, and did not acknowledge the interruption.
“It was bad,” Sam Blakemore, a member of the AMCC, told Alabama Daily News on Friday.
Blakemore said that all commission members saw the clip, and suspected it was a cyber attack by an unknown individual who had joined the meeting. He also said that the commission will likely work with state officials to ensure stronger security measures for future live streams of official state meetings.
“A few folks called me afterwards to ask if I saw (it),” he continued. “I never had anything like that happen.”
In an email, AMCC spokesperson Brittany Peters told ADN Friday that the commission will review its options for improving its virtual meeting security going forward.
“While regrettable, interruptions such as those that occurred at yesterday’s meeting are not entirely preventable in any public meeting,” she said. “The interruption yesterday was not from a member of the commission and AMCC swiftly removed the unknown individual. We are reviewing options offered by Zoom and other video conferencing programs that may help mitigate the risk of such interruptions in future virtual meetings.”
Similar incidents have increased in recent years since the COVID-19 pandemic, incidents often referred to as “Zoom bombing” in which virtual meetings are interrupted with offensive material such as pornography.
Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies have warned against engaging in such practices, noting that interfering with a public meeting is a serious crime under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has cautioned those using video-teleconferencing platforms like Zoom to be wary of cyber attacks, and urges those using such platforms to enable proper security measures.
“You think Zoom bombing is funny? Let’s see how funny it is after you get arrested,” said Matthew Schneider, United States Attorney for Eastern Michigan, in a past statement after several Zoom bombing incidents had taken place in Michigan.
The next meeting of the AMCC is scheduled for Feb. 8 at 1 p.m.