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Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

Hacked Ring Cams Used to Record Swatting Victims

Summary: Two U.S. men, 20-year-old James Thomas Andrew McCarty of Charlotte, N.C., and 22-year-old Kya Christian Nelson of Racine, Wisc., were charged with hacking into Ring home security cameras belonging to a dozen random people and then swatting them by falsely reporting violent incidents to police. Prosecutors allege the pair used stolen Yahoo email credentials to target victims who reused the same password for their Ring accounts, then streamed live video of police raids on social media and taunted officers and victims through the devices during a one-week span in November 2020.

What's compelling: Password reuse turned a home camera into a live feed for a police raid, and the indictment says McCarty went on to call in bomb threats or phony hostage situations more than two dozen times in 2021; the statutory maximum for the conspiracy charge is five years.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Identity & Access Management
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