Technology
Zoom Sued By Pole Dancing Instructor After “Uninvited Men” Hacked Her Online Classes
A pole dancing instructor has sued Zoom Video Communications, Inc. The instructor said that “uninvited men” joined her live video classes. This caused her to cancel some sessions and lose clients.
According to Fox Business, Stacey Simins owns and runs a dance studio in Austin, Texas. She also started using Zoom to teach classes in March 2020. It started the state’s shelter-in-place order caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Simins bought a “Pro account” and thought “Zoom to be private and secure.”
“After Ms. Simins began using Zoom, uninvited men joined some of her classes on Zoom. The attackers were intimidating and harassing to Ms. Simins’s clients,” the suit states. “On at least one occasion, Ms. Simins had to cancel a session as a result… [and] several of Ms. Simins’s students have refused to join more classes because of their fear over future incidents.”
Cybersecurity experts have identified a number of security concerns with the popular Zoom video-conferencing application. Learn more. https://www.lbmc.com/blog/as-zoom-security-issues/ #cybersecurity https://t.co/Wi74IsPH4K
— Bill Dean (@BillDeanCCE) April 19, 2020
Simins filed her lawsuit in California federal court on Monday and is seeking class-action status.
“Zoom offers a number of built-in protections to help hosts protect their meetings,” a Zoom spokesperson said in a statement. The company had also “recently made a series of updates to help hosts more easily access these features and avoid uninvited guests.”
Simins also criticized the company for promising a level of encryption that it failed to provide, reported Fox Business.
“Zoom has long marketed the service as being protected with end-to-end, 256-bit encryption,” the suit states. “But in reality, Zoom has failed to deliver private and secure video conferencing: The level of encryption Zoom provides is far less robust than what it promised.”
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