The digital age is full of innovations that have made the world more accessible and easier to navigate with endless information at our fingertips. While technology is incredibly beneficial, it can be used in a manner to place others at risk. One main example of this is swatting, a dangerous act that wastes valuable police resources. Unfortunately, many businesses and homes are vulnerable to swatting. We will be going over what measures you can take to make your home or business less of a target for swatting.
What is swatting?
Swatting is a form of criminal harassment in which the offender calls the police to make a false report that would cause a larger police response to a location. Often, these false reports detail a hostage situation or a mass shooter causing emergency services to scramble to that location. These locations include homes, businesses, and even public spaces.
In some of the most notable cases, online streamers have been swatted while live streaming to thousands of viewers. Other instances of swatting have occurred at busy shopping plazas and even random homes. All these examples result in tense and even deadly confrontations with law enforcement as they truly believe innocent people are in grave danger. In the state of Florida, swatting is considered a third-degree felony when the swatter knowingly gives false information to a law enforcement official about the alleged commission of a capital felony.
One of the most public cases occurred in late December 2017. The Wichita police were called to the residence of 28-year-old Andrew Finch believing a shooting had occurred and had developed into a hostage situation. However, this was far from the case as the callers had made false reports over a dispute in a videogame. Finch sadly passed away at the hospital after being shot by the police. Another recent high-profile case included the swatting of Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2022 her home was swatted twice within two days.
What to look out for
While swatting is incredibly dangerous, it is unlikely that the average person will be directly targeted by a swatter. The risk of being targeted often connects to how much of your personal information is online and how accessible it is. Based on how swatters select their targets, we can identify three risk groups: high, moderate, and low.
Starting with the high-risk group, when picking a target, swatters are looking for a mark that is easily identifiable. Those placed at the highest risk are public figures, journalists, social media personalities, and activists. What these groups all have in common is the size of their digital footprint. The larger one’s digital presence is online, the more likely they are to draw the unwanted attention of swatters.
Following this is the moderate group, which is comprised of individuals who frequently post on publicly accessible profiles. This group overshares personal information that can be weaponized against them by swatters. An example of this is frequently tagging your location to very specific addresses such as your home, workplace, and school. While they are at less risk than those in the high-risk category, the moderate-risk group can still be targeted by swatters.
The final group is low risk, this group is least likely to be targeted by swatters as they are significantly less accessible in the digital space. What you post to your personal account contains more sensitive information than you would think, as swatters can narrow down your location based on previous posts. The fastest way to reduce risk is to make personal accounts private and review who follows you to remove any unfamiliar characters.
How can I keep my business safe?
One of the best methods businesses can employ to stay safe from swatters is by using a VPN. A VPN, a virtual private network, protects sensitive information from becoming accessible online. This is made possible as the VPN encrypts internet traffic, disguising your online identity and making it difficult for third parties to collect vulnerable data. Learn more about how you can defend your home and business against swatting by contacting our team at Apex Security.