Teen Arrested for 30+ Swattings, Bomb Threats
Summary: A 16-year-old male from Ottawa, Canada was arrested and faces 60 charges, including creating fear by making bomb threats, for allegedly placing at least 30 fraudulent emergency calls across North America that included phony bomb threats and swatting attempts. The calls were tied to a Twitter user known as @ProbablyOnion, who publicly claimed responsibility for more than two dozen swatting and bomb threat incidents at schools and other public locations in the United States and advertised a for-hire swatting service. According to the FBI, each swatting incident costs emergency responders approximately $10,000.
What's compelling: Each of these hoax calls runs about $10,000 in emergency responder cost and pulls tactical units toward a fake address, and Ottawa police are investigating whether any diverted responders away from real emergencies. The mechanism is caller ID spoofing, which the source notes is insecure by design and has always been spoofable.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
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