Teen Arrested for 30+ Swattings, Bomb Threats

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/05/teen-arrested-for-30-swattings-bomb-threats/

By Brian Krebs
Krebs on Security
May 12, 2014

A 16-year-old male from Ottawa, Canada has been arrested for allegedly 
making at least 30 fraudulent calls to emergency services across North 
America over the past few months. The false alarms — two of which targeted 
this reporter — involved calling in phony bomb threats and multiple 
attempts at “swatting” — a hoax in which the perpetrator spoofs a call 
about a hostage situation or other violent crime in progress in the hopes 
of tricking police into responding at a particular address with deadly 
force.

On March 9, a user on Twitter named @ProbablyOnion (possibly NSFW) started 
sending me rude and annoying messages. A month later (and several weeks 
after blocking him on Twitter), I received a phone call from the local 
police department. It was early in the morning on Apr. 10, and the cops 
wanted to know if everything was okay at our address.

Since this was not the first time someone had called in a fake hostage 
situation at my home, the call I received came from the police 
department’s non-emergency number, and they were unsurprised when I told 
them that the Krebs manor and all of its inhabitants were just fine.

Minutes after my local police department received that fake notification, 
@ProbablyOnion was bragging on Twitter about swatting me, including me on 
his public messages: “You have 5 hostages? And you will kill 1 hostage 
every 6 times and the police have 25 minutes to get you $100k in clear 
plastic.” Another message read: “Good morning! Just dispatched a swat team 
to your house, they didn’t even call you this time, hahaha.”

[...]

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