MONTAGUE — The Selectboard is introducing a new policy for Zoom meeting participation following a “Zoom-bombing,” or hacking, incident during the Aug. 5 meeting.

Going forward, Executive Assistant Wendy Bogusz said, any person participating in a meeting via Zoom will have to request access and state who they are before screen sharing will be allowed. Participants will also be muted for the duration of the meeting and will have to use the raise-hand feature to be allowed to speak.

In an interview, Selectboard Chair Richard Kuklewicz said the Aug. 5 hack interrupted the meeting on two occasions when an unknown individual entered with Kuklewicz as the screen name.

Screen-sharing access was granted to this person, who then displayed “explicit material,” and the meeting was ended. A second hack occurred in the same meeting, temporarily shutting down the meeting again.

“We’re trying to be more diligent with people identifying who they are, without violating their ability to go to an open meeting,” Kuklewicz said. He noted the need to balance keeping meetings accessible on Zoom per Massachusetts Open Meeting Law while also being protective of situations involving hackers.

The problem isn’t unique to Montague. A similar hack occurred during a Charlemont Board of Health Zoom meeting on July 24. There, an unknown individual showed pornographic images.

The hack occurred five minutes into the meeting. Board of Health Co-Chair Doug Telling received a request to join the meeting from a person whose name he did not recognize. Soon after approving the request, a pornographic video was displayed from the unknown person.

“It was alarming. … It was uncomfortable,” said Charlemont Selectboard member Kim Blakeslee, who acts as a liaison for the town Board of Health and was in attendance at the meeting.

Telling quickly stopped the meeting once the video appeared. Blakeslee brought up the hack during the July 29 Selectboard meeting to let her fellow board members know. No specific policy changes were discussed in Charlemont, but Selectboard members talked about ways to prevent similar hacks in the future.

A notice from the FBI’s Boston Division posted in March 2020 provides information on video-teleconferencing (VTC) hacks called “VTC hijacks” or “Zoom bombing.” The page noted that hacks reported to the FBI Boston Division include “pornographic and/or hateful images and threatening language.” Among the division’s recommendations to minimize the risk of Zoom bombing is limiting meeting attendees’ ability for screen sharing.

Erin-Leigh Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@recorder.com or 413-930-4231. Intern Sam Ferland contributed reporting.