“We had heard about activities taking place in other parts of the world, but this is the first instance we’re aware of where a specific Jewish group was targeted for antisemitism in this way,” Mostyn added.

The webinar organizers were using Zoom for the online presentation — a video conferencing platform that has become a popular target for hackers, in a trend that is now called “Zoombombing.”

“It’s opportunistic and it happens all over the world,” cyber security expert Rob Howes said.

“Often times, companies don’t spend enough time on security,” added Howes. “They want to put a lot of features to market, and this has been a criticism of Zoom for quite some time — where they’re more concerned about functionality for the user than they are about security.”

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Howes adds that the self-isolation required during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in people using online video conferencing to do their jobs or socialize, which has made more people vulnerable to these kinds of cyber attacks.

“When you have a situation when everyone has gone from a corporate environment with a protected network to now working from home, generally what hackers will do is they will try and attack the end point — which is the worker who is now at home,” said Howes.

Another online video conferencing app called Houseparty has also come under fire after reports of hackers breaking into private chats.

The company said it is investigating the allegations and added that it believes the “rumours” were party of a “paid commercial smear campaign.”

Houseparty is now offering a $1 million bounty for anyone who can provide proof of the alleged smear campaign.

We are investigating indications that the recent hacking rumors were spread by a paid commercial smear campaign to harm Houseparty. We are offering a $1,000,000 bounty for the first individual to provide proof of such a campaign to bounty@houseparty.com. — Houseparty (@houseparty) March 31, 2020