For those of a certain age, you may remember the old gag where you would call up a business and ask if they had “Prince Albert in a can.” This happened way back in the days when you could purchase loose tobacco in a tin can. Prince Albert was one such product.
Now, if the person on the phone answered yes, you could say, “Well, let him out!” Yes, this is what pranks looked like in the 1960s.
Fast forward 60 years, and the pranks aren’t so harmless. In some cases, they're even deadly.
Swatting is a rather new innovation, often used by gamers to intimidate and harass other gamers or even gaming companies, as we’ll learn about later in the post. It involves sending police to a location based on a false claim of someone using a gun or threatening violence.
These days, cyber criminals are taking it a step further and using it to target businesses and their employees to attempt to intimidate those businesses into paying for the attackers to stop.
Let’s take a closer look at what swatting is, explore how perpetrators gain access to the information they need, and, most importantly, discuss how you can protect your organization against it
What is Swatting in Cybersecurity?
Swatting is simply the act of obtaining a person or organization’s address and making a claim that causes law enforcement to respond with SWAT teams to respond to what is a nonexistent threat.
Swatting has become increasingly common, with new variations of the crime now targeting celebrities, political figures, and even individuals singled out simply out of malice.
Recently, these attacks have begun targeting executives and board members, prompting many cybersecurity departments to take action against the growing threat.
How Do Swatters Get the Info They Need?
Chris Pierson, the Founder and CEO of BlackCloak, told CSO, “What we’re seeing right now is very different. It’s a coordinated precision attack against corporate executives.”
After gathering information on who’s who from company websites, LinkedIn, and other business directories, swatters then use other online tools to identify phone numbers and even the addresses of these people.
They may then contact law enforcement and falsely report a hostage situation, a murder, or another serious threat at that address.
In the same article, Pierson noted, 'We are seeing it with much more frequency… the trend is unnerving.' What’s even more unsettling is that Pierson cannot identify any specific reason behind these incidents
“We don’t know what the motivation is. It could be things associated with current events, or it could be to cause chaos,” Pierson says. “But we don’t have a definitive motive.”
In another article Pierson wrote himself, he notes that while “the surge in the swatting crimewave began in early October 2022 [it] has escalated significantly since the start of this year (2023).” He also goes on to say that the attacks no longer appear random but instead seem “organized and purposeful.”
Multiple industries, including healthcare, pharmaceuticals, insurance, and others, are being targeted, with hackers concentrating most of their attacks in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
That said, these are not the only places where the attacks are being carried out, so it’s crucial to start preparing for your defense against swatting attacks no matter where you live.
Recent Swatting Incidents
While each swatting incident is a cowardly, despicable act, few have been as upsetting as the recent incident involving the Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and its patients.
Criminals breached the hospital's systems by exploiting a vulnerability in Citrix and obtain the information of approximately 1 million current and former patients of the hospital.
With that information in hand, cyber criminals contacted at least 300 people and told them if they did not pay $50 to have their information removed from dark information lists, they would call 911 and report an incident at their home.
Obviously, those responsible for cybersecurity in healthcare are battening down the proverbial hatches to prevent further incidents of this kind.
In an incident from November 2020, 22-year-old Yanni Ouahione, upset that he’d been banned from playing Rainbow Six: Siege more than 80 times, called in a hoax at Ubisoft’s Montreal headquarters.
Believing there to be a hostage situation in progress, police carried out a major operation with the staff of the office barricading themselves on the rooftop while SWAT teams swept the building. They found no evidence of wrongdoing, and ultimately, the swatter was sentenced to community service.
And proving that no one is immune to swatting, someone called 911 in January 2020, claiming that there was a fire at the White House and that someone was trapped inside.
In May 2023, the FBI finally began tracking these incidents earnestly, creating a national database. We can only hope that they manage to change something as a result.
How to Prevent Swatting
Whether you’re a gamer, a person working in cybersecurity in healthcare, an executive at a corporation, or anyone else who is vulnerable to the potential of being swatted (read: everyone), there are steps you can take to reduce your susceptibility:
- Reduce the amount of personal information you share online. Remove your location from your profiles. Don’t share home or work address online. Avoid oversharing on social profiles. You’d be surprised how easy it is to figure out where someone is with just a picture and a few more details.
- Create strong passwords. Anyone who has been through cybersecurity awareness training knows that using strong passwords with multi-factor authentication is imperative. This reduces the chance of hackers accessing information they can exploit for a swatting attack.
- If you see something, say something. Swatters will often use phishing attacks that aim to extract vital and personal information that they use to find your location. If you know anything suspicious, contact your cybersecurity team or any authorities who can help you stop an incident before it starts.
- Know how to use your privacy and security settings on every device you use to access the internet. Do the same with any of your social media accounts. This is especially true of location services that some social media platforms enable automatically.
Could I be a Target of Swatting?
Swatting is a threat we’re all vulnerable to — a sobering reality of modern life. When personal information is easily accessible and falls into the hands of those intent on causing chaos or harm, it’s like storing dynamite next to a box of matches. Sooner or later, that volatile combination can lead to devastating consequences.
By taking the necessary steps to safeguard your personal information from prying eyes, you significantly reduce the risk of becoming a target. Our goal is to help keep you safe, and we're here to provide the knowledge you need to prevent swatting attacks. Stay safe out there!
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