Year 5 students at a Queensland school were shown graphic pornography when at-home lessons on video conferencing site Zoom were hacked.

The students at Emmanuel Catholic Primary School in Mackay had been using Zoom for home learning as schools across the state remain closed to all but vulnerable students and children of essential workers.

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7NEWS has learned the students were twice subjected to the explicit imagery when an uninvited guest entered Zoom meetings.

Teachers responded by immediately closing the lessons, a spokesman for the Catholic Education Office’s Rockhampton diocese said.

He confirmed, “two of its online lessons with students in a Year 5 class were compromised with inappropriate content being broadcast by an unknown source”.

File image of the Emmanual Catholic Primary School in Mackay. Credit: 7NEWS

“Following this incident, the school’s leadership team members personally contacted the parents of the students involved with counselling support being offered,” the spokesman said.

“The school followed its reporting procedures and immediately contacted the Queensland Police providing them will all details of the incident.

Teachers at Emmanual Catholic Primary School in Mackay immediately ended an online lesson in which children were shown porn. File image. Credit: Getty Images

“The school’s security measures have been reviewed to enable future online lessons to occur.

“The principal of the school indicated to students, parents and teachers that every effort is being made to ensure that students can return to their online learning program.”

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Play Video Education Minister Dan Tehan says he hopes all schools across Australia will resume teaching from the classroom by the end of May Education Minister Dan Tehan says he hopes all schools across Australia will resume teaching from the classroom by the end of May

Queensland police are investigating the source of the cyber attacks.

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told 7NEWS the hacks are an example of “Zoom bombing”, which has seen “very disturbing videos, where they’re pornographic or terrorist in nature” shared without consent.

She said the behaviour has plagued the website, with Zoom having not “mindfully built privacy safety into their platform”.

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She said Zoom meetings should always require access via a password or pin to keep out unwanted attendees.

“We ourselves need to be mindful these things happen and try and put our settings to the highest possible security,” Inman Grant said.

Online school learning in Queensland is set to continue until at least May 22, when the state government will decide whether the restrictions on attendance, aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus, can be eased.

Zoom response

Zoom said it is “deeply upset” to hear about the incident.

The company said it has recently updated security measures, including ramping up password protection and making virtual waiting rooms default for school users.

“For users enrolled in our K-12 program, we have also updated the default screen share settings to ensure teachers are the only ones who can share content in class,” it said.

“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.”