In light of that, recently, one such incident took place where the hackers hijacked various smart home devices and live-streamed police raids simultaneously on various innocent natives of the settlement. Then, hackers made a hoax call to the police and authorities on 911, which lead to “Swatting”. In this regard, the FBI confirmed that these hackers have even spoken to the acknowledging officers operating via the hacked kit.
What is “Swatting”?
The hackers are aggravating Swatting attacks, which is an offense. The operators attempt to befool authorities by
making a hoax telephonic call and falsely stating that the current state of affair is an emergency and they should straight away be at their disposal at the said residence with armed forces.
It should be noted that this was not the first time an incident of such sort has taken place. The FBI had clearly stated that there are “deadly” risks and appalling outcomes of such attacks. One such fake hoax call costed the life of an innocent person three years back when the police shot that man in Kansas over the information handed over to them by the hackers.
Why such incidents happen where the hackers easily enter the secured digital systems of owners?
Following the incident and investigating the matter at hand, the FBI has given valuable insights about the subject, the officials clarified that such “pranks” become a success because the victims have reused the watchwords from other devices and services for setting up the same smart home device as well, making attackers' work exceedingly simple.
On the hub of confidential information, the Dark Web, such credentials of devices are easily hacked and sold and concurrently bought; and when we use the same watchwords for multiple devices and services, as a consequence, it becomes easy for hackers to enter the security system and break the firewall.
“The [perpetrators] call emergency services to report a crime,” the FBI told.
“The offender watches the Livestream footage and engages with the responding police through the camera and speakers. In some cases, the offender also live streams the incident on shared online community platforms.”
With an upsurge in similar cases, the FBI has urged the victims as well as the owners of the smart devices/services that they must change their watchwords immediately and should also update the same regularly.