In the past, the word swatting referred to something you’d do to a fly. So what is swatting referring to if not this activity? In this age of keyboard warriors, doxxing and anonymity on the Internet it’s a term that I’ve seen thrown around on the one hand but on the other hand have also read stories to suggest that the activity is rare and somewhat of an urban legend. Which is true? I decided to do some research to get to the bottom of it.
Swatting refers to calling law enforcement on another person on false pretenses as a prank and increasingly involves exploiting smart home technology such as smart doorbells and security cameras. Swatting is becoming more common and the methods involved more sophisticated.
History of swatting
Before it even had a name, examples of swatting from the past included prank calls involving receiving a pizza delivery to your house that you didn’t order or someone calling you repeatedly and hanging up. Today’s hoaxes can be far more serious and deadly.
Swatting began online where someone would find out the address of a person they didn’t like or had a feud with and would call law enforcement to illicit a response against that person, usually completely unbeknownst to that person.
There are documented cases of innocent people being injured or killed in swatting cases particularly in the US where law enforcement answers a call that they believe is legitimate and go to a home anticipating a problem and the residents of the home had no idea what was happening.
While swatting might be rare in the bigger picture, the reality is that it’s related to Internet and personal security, identity theft and other aspects of security that we all need to be aware of. Recently swatting has begun to become more sophisticated in terms of how it’s committed.
What is swatting?
The term swatting is derived from the acronym S.W.A.T. which in the US stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. A S.W.A.T. team refers to a law enforcement branch that uses special weapons and tactics as the name suggests to respond to serious crimes such as riots, violent confrontations with criminals and over time, to deal with drug trafficking, hostage taking, terrorism and other serious events.
The term swatting was coined when the first incidents of swatting involved actual S.W.A.T. teams being sent to a residence to respond to what turned out to be a hoax call.
Early cases of swatting involved instances where one person had a feud or dispute with another and either called in a fake threat or pretended to be the person they were actually calling about and asked law enforcement to go to that person’s house to investigate. Often the hoax involved the threat of violence that made law enforcement believe they were responding to a serious and potentially volatile situation where their lives might be in danger. A situation where they may need to use their weapons to protect themselves.
Early cases of swatting
The FBI first started using the term swatting in 2008
but some of the earliest cases occurred several years earlier in the 2002-06 time period that the FBI kept track of after discovering a pattern of it occurring.
One early case of swatting that ended tragically occurred in 2017 in Wichita, Kansas when police responded to a fake call placed by an Internet gamer and shot and killed the innocent homeowner who had no idea why police arrived at his house. The two men responsible for the hoax call were convicted and sentenced to 20 years and 15 months in prison respectively.
Since then numerous other incidents have occurred to unsuspecting people including gamers, activists, celebrities, journalists, business people and politicians among others.
But how prevalent are these incidents and how can we protect ourselves from them?
How prevalent is swatting?
The FBI doesn’t currently keep a central database on several common and growing problems such as swatting or porch piracy so exact stats are difficult to refer to. One former FBI staffer with experience in swatting cases estimated that cases grew from around 400 in 2011 to over 1,000 by 2019 so the trend appears to be growing significantly.
Currently in the US, swatting can be prosecuted as a federal crime through various federal criminal statutes. The most serious swatting cases that have have resulted in the death of an innocent person have seen jail sentences as long as 20 years to the perpetrator(s).
The increased prevalence of swatting appears to be tied to the growth and high profile use of convenient technologies within the home.
Swatting through camera and voice-capable smart devices
As technology becomes more sophisticated and helpful so does the ability of people to take advantage of it to harm us. In December 2020 the FBI issued a press release describing a new trend in swatting:
Smart home device manufacturers warned the FBI that their devices with cameras and voice functionality are now being used by swatters by exploiting stolen or exposed passwords. Typically swatters are able to access devices by stealing email passwords and exploiting smart technology when owners have reused default or weak passwords or simply failed to take advantage of two-factor authentication. Owners also fail to create new, complex passwords that are harder to steal.
Specifically, swatters are able to hack into a person’s smart doorbell or other smart technology, access the voice and/or camera component and then place a call to law enforcement and report a (hoax) crime at the house to illicit a response from police. Because they are able to do this remotely, the swatters are able to hide their identity while making the call look legitimate since it appears to come directly from the home in question.
In some cases, swatters live-streamed the entire event through the person’s own camera and smart technology and in others cases, take over a home’s camera to spy on the homeowners.
If you’re still using the factory default or a weak password(s) for your smart technology you should immediately change them to something unique and strong.
Protect yourself from swatting
Whether swatting is a rare or a growing problem that will be dealt with and reduced with experience, one thing is certain: Protecting your passwords and security inside the home is paramount and may save you grief down the line. Here are some things you can do to protect yourself from swatting.
- Change all default smart device passwords and update them regularly as you would with a work password that requires updating every so often.
- Use a strong secure password that abides by current guidelines to ensure it is difficult to hack.
- Be very careful and selective where you place security cameras. While security cameras at the front door and around home entrances make sense in the event of a break in to identify the thieves, do you really need a camera in a bedroom that could be exploited with potentially embarrassing results?
- Research the smart device you’re thinking about installing before purchasing it. Even brand name devices are being hacked and while it may be more due to a weak password being exploited, some apps are poorly designed.
- Popular top tier smart devices are ones like Ring, Nest, Vivint and Remo. Second-tier smart device manufacturers included names like Victure, Qihoo and Accfly. Click here to access a report that compares security and vulnerabilities among smart devices.
- If you’re concerned about swatting and consider yourself high risk, check with your local law enforcement to see if your community has a swatting database like Seattle.