A Plymouth School Committee meeting being held on Zoom was cut short Monday night after a hacker took over the screen, replacing it with a grainy picture of a man engaged in a sex act, according to screenshots shared with the Independent.
Swastikas could be seen on two corners of the screen, and at the bottom it said: “HACKED BY CCP JAY.”
A message to the school community was immediately posted online saying the meeting was “unexpectedly disrupted due to a technical glitch.”
But on Tuesday, Superintendent Christopher Campbell offered parents a more complete explanation of a “deeply concerning incident” that took place during the meeting.
“Shortly after the meeting began, our Zoom account was compromised by unauthorized individuals who took control of the screen and displayed offensive and inappropriate images,” Campbell wrote.
“We immediately shut down the broadcast and ended the meeting in order to protect our community from further exposure,” he said.
Campbell said the breach was reported to Plymouth police, who will investigate and determine how it occurred.
“We sincerely regret that members of our community were exposed to such disturbing content,” Campbell wrote. It’s unclear how many people were on the Zoom meeting at the time, though the number is usually low.
“Please know that we are taking immediate steps to strengthen our digital safeguards and ensure that our public meetings remain safe, respectful spaces for all.”
Monday’s meeting agenda will be taken up at the next in-person School Committee meeting on Sept. 8, he said.
Campbell said this was the first time a virtual school committee meeting had been hacked.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.