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Arizona—The FBI’s Phoenix Field Office wants to educate the public on how to protect your smart devices from harm.
Swatting is a term used to describe fraudulent calls to emergency services, particularly those reporting an immediate threat to life. Swatting can be motivated by revenge, as harassment or as a joke, but it is a serious crime with serious consequences. The goal is to attract a response from law enforcement and a SWAT team to a specific location.
These attacks pull resources away from actual emergencies, disrupting the ability of emergency services to respond.
Criminals gain access to victims’ smart devices, then use stolen email passwords to log into the device and hack features including the live-streaming camera and device speakers. Criminals often use spoofing technology to anonymize their own phone numbers to make it look like the emergency call came from the victim’s phone number. This increases their credibility when dealing with senders.
When law enforcement responds to the residence, the offender watches the live stream footage and interacts with the responding police through cameras and speakers. In some cases, the perpetrator broadcasts the incident live on common online community forums.
If you have smart home devices with cameras and/or audio options, there are ways to protect yourself:
- Use complex passwords or passphrases for online accounts
- Avoid duplicate passwords on different accounts.
- Update your passwords or passphrases regularly.
- Practice good cyber hygiene.
- Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all online accounts and any device that touches the Internet. Use a mobile phone number, virtual or physical tokens, or biometric options (such as a face or fingerprint scan) for an additional layer of authentication.
If you are a victim of this type of crime, be sure to report it to your local police department. If you believe your email or other smart device credentials have been compromised, report the incident to the FBI’s Internet Crime Center at www.ic3.gov or call your local FBI office.
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