A Texas House Committee Hearing Was Hacked By Russians

A Texas House committee hearing was allegedly hacked, forcing its livestream to end after messages in Russian and Chinese and videos of military operations appeared in the Zoom meeting.

According to Harvey Kronberg’s Quorum Report, the Texas House Committee on Securing Texas from Hostile Foreign Organizations was holding a field hearing at UT Tyler, when the messages appeared at the last few minutes of the hearing. The videos showed images of military exercises, images of cats smoking joints and racist messages in foreign languages.

“It sounded like Chinese gibberish just sped up,” one of the attendees said. “They’re hacking in to interrupt because they don’t like what they’re hearing,” said another.

According to Kxan, one of the messages displayed by the alleged hackers said in Russian “F— you, to all those connected.” Other attendees used racist and anti-American usernames.

Committee chairman Cole Hefner, said the source of the attack was unknown.

“Toward the end of public testimony today during our Securing Texas from Hostile Foreign Organizations one or more bad actors interrupted the Zoom live stream,” Hefner said in a statement. “Once the live stream was compromised, I called for the Committee to stand at ease while our host, the University of Texas at Tyler, quickly made several attempts to cease the interruptions before ultimately terminating the live stream. An investigation is underway to determine who was behind this incident and how this was able to occur. As I stated earlier, what happened today underscores the very real cybersecurity threats facing Texas by hostile forces. The committee did record on-site audio, which we hope to make accessible on the Texas House website upon return to the Capitol.”

The agenda of the committee included studying “the threat posed by hostile foreign organizations on the Texas economy, securities, and values.”