We suffered a critical security incident at our online event ‘Online Exchange on the Creation of Women’s Committees’ on Thursday 25th September. The incident has put the safety and wellbeing of participants at risk.
We deeply apologise to attendees and take full responsibility for this incident. We are still investigating possible causes.
We reacted as quickly as we could and stopped the meeting.
Here is what we have done so far to address the incident:
- We have filed a police report with the competent authorities.
- We have performed a security check on all EDF-related accounts involved in the event.
- We have raised the violation with Zoom, which is investigating possible causes.
Here is what we are doing to prevent future occurrences:
- We are hiring an expert on online event security to review our online event procedures.
- While we do not know the cause yet, we are changing our events setup to reduce possible vulnerabilities – as also suggested by your e-mail.
- We are reviewing our list of events and postponing events that might be at higher risk of hacking.
- We are discussing this incident with our Executive Committee and Women’s Committee.
It is not lost on us that our environment is increasingly hostile for organisations working in human rights and women’s rights. We are increasing our security and reformulating the way we host and promote events to prioritise everyone’s security and wellbeing.
We deeply apologise to the participants affected and to our speakers and partners. We are committed to following our safeguarding and anti-harassment policies, and we welcome everyone who experienced a problem at our events to report it to us and to the relevant authorities.