Believr

Summary

Hackers infiltrated a virtual church service hosted by the founder of Believr, an LGBTQ+ Christian dating app, overriding Zoom settings to display child sexual abuse material during the session. The attack traumatized over 60 congregants, including families, children, and survivors of sexual assault, despite the host's security measures. This incident occurred amid a broader pattern of Zoom meetings being compromised with explicit content globally, including other religious services, government webinars, and educational seminars. The perpetrator exploited platform vulnerabilities to bypass safeguards, highlighting systemic risks in widely used video conferencing tools. Authorities, including the UK's National Crime Agency, acknowledged the severity of such attacks and prioritized combating online child exploitation.

Motives

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TTPs

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Description

On April 20, 2020, at approximately 10:30 AM PST, hackers disrupted a virtual church service hosted via Zoom by Adam Evers, founder of the Christian LGBTQ+ dating app Believr. The service, attended by over 60 congregants, was targeted during a presentation where Evers shared content from a Google Slide. Attendees observed a black box appearing over the shared slide, which initially did not interrupt the presentation. The attacker subsequently bypassed Zoom’s security settings and replaced the slide with explicit child sexual abuse imagery visible to all participants. Evers, based in Oakland, California, confirmed the intrusion occurred despite existing meeting controls. The congregation included families, children, and survivors of sexual assault, amplifying the incident’s psychological impact.

Evers publicly documented the attack through Twitter on the same day, stating Zoom had not responded to his reports despite the severity of the breach. The incident traumatized attendees, with Evers emphasizing the community’s vulnerability due to its demographic composition. No technical details regarding the attackers’ entry vector or identity were disclosed in available reports. Law enforcement engagement was implied through broader context but not explicitly confirmed for this specific incident. The intrusion exemplified a pattern of "Zoombombing" attacks targeting religious, governmental, and educational Zoom meetings globally during April 2020, though Believr’s service represented a distinct case involving child abuse material. Evers’ tweets provided primary contemporaneous evidence of the attack’s occurrence and immediate organizational consequences.

Sources

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