The video begins with a teacher in front of a web camera, instructing her students on the day’s lessons. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, all the participants are communicating online, using the video conferencing app Zoom.

But they aren’t alone. The meeting has also been infiltrated by pranksters who are set on disrupting the class with curse words and racist taunts.

“Yeah, no one gives a fuck,” one of the hijackers yells at the teacher. “No one gives a fuck about your class… Fuck Spanish.”

The incident is but one example of “zoom-bombing,” or when someone with ill-intent hijacks an online video conferencing session. On Monday, the FBI warned the public about the attacks, which the agency says is emerging as a nationwide threat.

The hijackers infiltrating an online class, which was later posted in a YouTube clip.

However, the culprits behind the harassment are not as secretive as you might think. One group has actually been bragging about their exploits by recording their Zoom-bombing sessions and posting them on YouTube and TikTok. They've also been live streaming their attacks on Twitch.

The same group has also been organizing in public chats on Discord to determine who to strike next. To find their targets, the culprits have been searching social media for public Zoom gatherings while also taking requests from students, who’ve been joining the Discord chats with details on more meetings the group can hit.

“Can anybody troll my science class at 9 15,” wrote one user in the chat on Monday, which was accompanied by several other requests on the same day.

“I have a class in 30 minutes that I’ll send a link for.”

“My friend's gonna give me the code to her hs pre calc class tomorrow morning.”

“So like who trying to raid my AP Bio Zoom meeting 11:30 tomorrow? West Coast.”

PCMag learned about the activity from a reader, who noticed one of the videos the group posted on YouTube. The 4-minute clip shows the culprits hijacking several Zoom meetings to swear at teachers as their students watch. (The video, and others, have since been taken down following PCMag's reporting.)

A chat from members in the Discord group, where they share codes to infiltrate Zoom meetings.

“Yo, what up sixth grade class,” one member says in the same video before playing explicit rap lyrics. In a separate video of the same incident, the culprits say "fuck you bitch" to the teacher and students in the Zoom feed.

The group has also been targeting Zoom meetings outside of education. One clip shows the members infiltrating what appears to be an Alcoholics Anonymous group to share pictures of the Ku Klux Klan.

One member brings alcohol bottles to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on Zoom

In all the videos, you can hear the hijackers laughing at other attendees. But even participants in the Zoom-bombing sessions seem to be aware the harassment is going too far.

"I honestly feel so bad for these teachers, they are just trying to do what they love and the disrespect really bring out the hurt in them," wrote one user in the Discord chats.

“The only thing I’m mad at is when y’all be putting porn on fucking kindergarten classes,” wrote another.

Members tell others to stop showing porn during the Zoom hijackings

Others have also indicated the Zoom-bombing sessions can involve exposing targets to child pornography. “I asked people on 4chan to do a raid with me and they put child porn on the zoom meeting,” wrote one user in the chats. The attacks can also focus on spreading hate. One member in a Discord chat shared a video hijacking labeled as a "democratic fundraiser." In the clip, the culprit yells racial epithets and says "Heil Hitler" three times, and then "white power" before being booted out.

Nevertheless, the group is intent on continuing the harassment. In less than a week, members have been organizing and sharing IDs for numerous Zoom meetings on at least two Discord chat servers. Just today more than 20 Zoom meeting links were shared in 30 minutes. Google Hangouts and Facebook Live meetings have been targeted as well.

The members will try to pose as students before launching the attacks

The members have also been bragging about the results. The admin of one of the servers, an apparent 16-year-old named “Patchi," recently shared a screenshot taken from a teacher who decided to cancel further Zoom sessions after being harassed by a hijacking. "After today's Zoom session, it is very disheartening to let you know I will not be resuming those sessions," the teacher wrote in the post.

A post from Patchi who at one point mentions he's 16.

On Monday night, Patchi called on users to join him in harassing an upcoming YouTube Live session by writing: “NEED A HUGE FAVOR FOR ALL OF YALL WE ARE GONNA RAID A YOUTUBE LIVE AND I NEED AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE TO SPAM THE CHAT."

Patchi's Discord server already has over 2,000 members since starting the harassment last Friday. The other server, operated by a user named "Siris," has almost 1,000 members.

We’ve reached out to Zoom, Discord, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch for comment, and will update this story if they respond.

In the meantime, Zoom users, especially educators, should remain on guard against potential hijackers. Requests for Zoom-bombing are also appearing on Reddit.

To stay safe, users should avoid sharing public Zoom meetings on social media. To prevent hijackers from crashing a meeting, you can use the "waiting room" feature to ensure only invited guests enter a video session before it begins. The hosts of a Zoom meeting can also change the settings to prevent guests from sharing their computer screens during a video session. Check out our guide for more tips.

PCMag has also reached out to the FBI, which has been encouraging Zoom-bombing victims to notify the agency. We'll update the story if we hear back.

Update: The user Patchi briefly paused the activities on his Discord server in response to PCMag's reporting.

"We do not condone harassment to any users of Zoom," an admin on the server said. "The Discord server is to just troll in a fun matter but nothing to extreme to the point where people get hurt or upset."

However, the group has since resumed more efforts to hijack Zoom sessions. This has included Patchi posting a new video on YouTube showing off their latest exploits.

YouTube has decided to only remove one of the videos the group has posted because it contained racial epithets, which violates the platform's policy on hate speech. The other videos remain up. YouTube didn't explain why, but noted it has no policy concerning zoom-bombing.

Twitch, meanwhile, shut down Patchi's channel on the service for violating its rules on harassment.

Update 2: In a statement, Discord said: "This activity clearly violates Discord's Terms of Service, and we removed the servers as soon as we were made aware of them."

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