Paedos hijacked virtual wine tasting on Zoom and flooded it with child abuse videos
SHOCKING images of child abuse were inflicted on dozens of wine enthusiasts during an online tasting event.
The wine workshop was being hosted on video chat app Zoom when it was hacked by ‘cowardly’ internet vandals.
The sick cybercriminals proceeded to post horrendous child porn videos to the Zoom chat.
Police are currently investigating the incident.
The disturbing event took place during a Zoom chat hosted by Manchester-based wine merchant Grain To Grape.
The UK company had planned for the event to be a wine and cheese tasting activity.
The use of Zoom for video-conferencing has increased in popularity ever since people have had to spend more time indoors.
However, there have been numerous reports of cyberattacks on the platform.
These are being referred to as Zoom-bombing and often involve an uninvited person entering a call and causing offence.
Between 60 to 70 customers were on the Grain To Grape call, hosted by owners Tom Sneesby, 36, and Barry van Gothen, 40.
One of these customers was a police officer.
Other people also joined via the wine merchant’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
A hacker reportedly posted the first series of child abuse images 25 minutes into the video call.
Sneesby and van Gothen tried to stop the vile content from being shown but in the end the Zoom chat had to be cancelled.
Sneesby told the Manchester Evening News: “The thing we had to see, I would rather see somebody shot in the head [than] see what we had to look at.
“It’s the most repugnant, the most foul and haunting stuff you can see.
“That’s why it was chosen. It’s the worst thing you can put in front of normal people.”
He went on to describe the act as “cowardly and villainous” and said it had left him and other people on the call “in bits”.
The wine business had been hosting similar events over the last six weeks.
They involve people buying a ticket and then being sent a bottle of wine and some cheese in the post which they can then discuss via Zoom.
Grain To Grape had sold 180 tickets for the event.
The details and password for the Zoom chat had been posted online beforehand.
Sneesby told the Manchester Evening News: “A lot of people immediately exited and we, perhaps, in retrospect should have done the same.
“We were trying to handle it and remove what was going on which forced us to look at it.
“We were trying to remove it rather than just quit.
“We had a lot of people offering us their support despite having been on the call and witnessing it themselves.
“It was just a feeling of nausea and numbness, horror at what we were shown and the fact it had come out of the blue.”
He added: “One minute you are talking wine and the next minute we are trying desperately to remove the person who had hacked into our Zoom.”
Grain To Grape will continue its events but reportedly won’t be using Zoom.
A spokeswoman for Zoom also told the publication: “This incident is truly devastating and appalling, and our user policies explicitly prohibit any obscene, indecent, illegal or violent activity or content on the platform.
“Zoom strongly condemns such behaviour and recently updated several features to help our users more easily protect their meetings.
“For all users, we have made the Zoom Meeting ID less visible to help prevent unintended sharing, and we have added a new Security icon to the Zoom meeting controls for all hosts to help them quickly access in-meeting security features, including the ability to remove participants and lock meetings, among other actions.
“In the latest version of Zoom, there is a new ‘Report a User’ feature in the Security icon for meeting hosts and co-hosts to flag users, who are misusing the platform, to our Trust & Safety team.
“We encourage users to report any incidents of this kind either to Zoom so we can take appropriate action or directly to law enforcement authorities.”
Another ‘Zoom-bombing’ event in Plymouth this week saw 60 children taking part in an online fitness class exposed to footage of child sex abuse.
Andy Burrows, Head of Child Safety Online Policy at the NSPCC, said: “There appears to be a deeply disturbing trend emerging of online public meetings being ‘bombed’ with images of child sexual abuse, which must have been incredibly upsetting for both the children and adults involved.
“While the responsibility for this lies with those uploading this terrible footage, it’s important to take precautions to lessen the risks posed to children and adults, including not sharing full meeting details and passwords on social media and only providing them to people you trust.
“Zoom needs to urgently act to protect their users, while all tech firms providing video conferencing services must immediately set out how they are responding to these very real risks.”
Top tips for keeping children safe online
Here's some measures parents/guardians can take...
- The Sun previously spoke to online safety expert Claire Stead, who shared her top tips for parents who want to make sure their kids aren’t getting access to any dodgy material online.
- 1. Teach yourself: If you familiarise yourself with popular apps like Instagram and Snapchat then you’ll have a better idea of the risks your kids face, and how to prevent them.
- 2. Check privacy settings: Major apps and services – like Facebook or your Sky TV box – have ways of restricting access for young people, so check through the settings thoroughly before letting your child onto a device.
- 3. Get them offline: It’s key to remind children that there’s a whole world offline too, to help dampen the impact of potential cyberbullying – which Claire calls “the biggest concern around online safety”.
- 4. Talk to them: Make sure children know the risks they face but also make them aware that they can talk to you when things go wrong – particularly if someone is being mean to them, or being sexual with them, online.
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