By Jamie Miller
Grand Rapids Community College Police are continuing to investigate the hacking of a Student Leaders Town Hall meeting that occurred on Wednesday, Dec. 17, when a GRCC Zoom call was overtaken by unknown individuals posting racial slurs, threats, and sexually explicit content.
A GRCC Police officer met with the Assistant Director of Campus Activities and Conduct, Andrew Sweeder, at his office on Dec. 18. Sweeder told the officer that a joint meeting of the Student Government and the Campus Activities Board was being held on Wednesday, Dec 17. He told the officer that at 4:45 p.m., when members of the Black Africana Student Union were presenting, the meeting was taken over by five outside individuals who displayed pornographic and racist videos and images.
According ot the police report that The Collegiate obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, the officer was able to obtain footage of the meeting, which confirmed that with 35 seconds left in the video, the outside individuals began playing videos of black males engaged in “homosexual activities,” while racial slurs and threatening text appeared on screen. Near the end of the video, the hackers took over the main screen and continued playing pornographic content. At the very end of the video, while the content continues playing, the hijackers displayed a windows pop up message reading, “You’ve been hacked.”
GRCC’s IT staff were able to isolate the IP addresses of the hijackers, who appeared to be located in the Czech Republic, Norway, England, France, and Romania, respectively.
The officer contacted an assistant prosecuting attorney from the Kent County Prosecutors’ Office to inform him of the situation and ask about the possibility of obtaining a search warrant to locate the individuals. The attorney told the officer that a warrant could be obtained, but he wasn’t sure that a foreign computer provider would comply with a court order from the United States. The officer informed the chief of what the attorney said, and more investigation is planned for after the college’s holiday break.
