Category: preparedness

These updates are shared to help raise the situational awareness of Faith-Based organizations to best defend against and mitigate the impacts from all-hazards threats including physical security, cybersecurity, and natural disasters.

Southwest US to bake in first heat wave of season and records may fall

Parts of California, Nevada and Arizona are expected to bake this week as the first heat wave of the season arrives with triple-digit temperatures forecast for areas including Phoenix, which last summer saw a record 31 straight days of at least 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius).

By Wednesday, most of an area stretching from southeast California to central Arizona will see “easily their hottest” weather since last September, and record daily highs will be in jeopardy from Las Vegas to Phoenix, the National Weather Service said late Monday. Excessive heat warnings have been issued from 10 a.m. Wednesday to 8 p.m. Friday due to the “dangerously hot conditions,” the weather service said.

Analyst Comments:

Below are several resources that organizations will want to consider in their efforts to help keep congregations healthy and safe.

• Red Cross: Extreme Heat Safety
• National Integrated Heat Health Information System: Who is Most At Risk to Extreme Heat?
• Gov: Extreme Heat

Best Practices for securing your streaming services

ICYMI, FB-ISAO just posted a new blog highlighting a recent security awareness product that was developed by the Cyber Threat Intelligence Working Group. As the blog details, “Streaming the services for your house of worship has many benefits, such as reaching others from far away, serving those who are homebound, overcoming space limitations, and recording services. Along with the convenience lurks a shadow of vulnerability. Houses of worship need to be concerned about more than serving their congregants; they also need to be concerned for about the privacy and security of their congregations.”

Analyst Comments:

Some of the items covered in the guidance include:

• Set the tone: Educate meeting participants on best practices for video conference etiquette, rules of engagement, security, etc. For example: “Don’t sharing meeting links publicly”, “Be cautious of unexpected attendees”, or even “Anyone not following the rules will be disconnected.”
• Require Meeting Passwords: Require participants to enter a password to join.
• Beware of:
  • Malicious links in the chat: Attackers can trick participants into clicking on malicious links shared via the chat, allowing the attackers to steal credentials.
  • Stolen meeting links: One way to avoid issues of stolen links and unauthorized access to meetings is to turn on notifications that will let you know when someone has joined your meeting room without you.
  • “Zoombombing“: Zoombombing (aka Zoom raiding) is the unofficial term for uninvited individuals disrupting webinar meetings with inappropriate content or behavior.
  • Outdated software: Make sure your video conferencing software is patched with the latest vendor provided updates and have automated upgrades turned on.

You can download the security awareness product here.

These updates are shared to help raise the situational awareness of Faith-Based organizations to best defend against and mitigate the impacts from all-hazards threats including physical security, cybersecurity, and natural disasters.

Extremists share assassination resources in response to ongoing Israel/Hamas conflict

A trusted partner has shared with FB-ISAO a graphic that was recently shared on Telegram in a pro-AQ Urdu language channel titled “Make the Jews forget the devil’s whispers with your actions”. The graphic promotes the use of assassinations. It states, “A single operation of this kind on a precise and sensitive target can be a mortal blow for the enemy and its impact can have more effect than dozens of operations on the fronts, for what the target can have in terms of influence media, political, economic or in the da’wa, and we have examples of this whose memories are not far away, such as the assassination of several cartoonists from the newspaper Charlie Hebdo by the two heroes the Kouachi brothers, the assassination of the Russian ambassador by the Turkish Mujahid Melvut, the assassination of the Jewish Zionist rabbi Meir Kahane by the hero Syed Nusair, the assassination of the treacherous tyrant Sadat by the hero Islambouli and many others, and this is a Prophetic path, because the Messenger of Allah had ordered the assassination of the poet Ka’b ibn Al-Ashraf and the Jew Abu Rafi who had gathered the allies to fight the Prophet a, and many others ordered by the Prophet .”

The graphic lists as potential targets:

• Political personalities such as ambassadors, ministers and presidents.
• Economic personalities such as owners of international companies and banks.
• Famous media personalities and owners of Crusader-Zionist channels.

Analyst Comments:

The graphic also points readers to previous editions of INSPIRE Magazine which offered insights on how to carry out assassinations. Those documents have been loaded into the FB-ISAO Slack Workspace, along with the original graphic in the #ofb_physical_security channel. Members may want to consider how this impacts security risk assessments for the heads of houses of worship.

These updates are shared to help raise the situational awareness of Faith-Based organizations to best defend against and mitigate the impacts from all-hazards threats including physical security, cybersecurity, and natural disasters.

Voice cloning of political figures is still easy as pie

The Center for Countering Digital Hate looked at 6 different AI-powered voice cloning services: Invideo AI, Veed, ElevenLabs, Speechify, Descript, and PlayHT. For each, they attempted to make the service clone the voices of eight major political figures and generate five false statements in each voice. In 193 out of the 240 total requests, the service complied, generating convincing audio of the fake politician saying something they have never said. One service even helped out by generating the script for the disinformation itself!

Related Articles:

• OpenAI finds Russian and Chinese groups used its tech for propaganda campaigns
• OpenAI has stopped five attempts to misuse its AI for ‘deceptive activity’
• All Eyes on Rafah’s Virality Creates Market for AI Spam About Palestine
• Foreign Influence Campaigns Don’t Know How to Use AI Yet Either
• ATTACK OF THE VOICE CLONES: How AI voice cloning tools threaten election integrity and democracy
• DHS Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board

Analyst Comments:

In addition to legitimate uses, AI can be used to promote misinformation, disinformation, malinformation; and to carry out cybercrimes and scams.

Faith-Based Organizations (FBO) and their members should consider being alert to deepfakes and other AI deceptions. The following resources can be used to understand and detect deepfakes and other AI deceptions.

NPR: 4 tips for spotting deepfakes and other AI-generated images

Fast Company: Tech tips to identify AI-generated deepfake images

NSA, FBI, and CISA Release Cybersecurity Information Sheet on Deepfake Threats,  PDF

While CISA’s Analyst Comments: RISK IN FOCUS: GENERATIVE A.I. AND THE 2024 ELECTION CYCLE’s focus is the election cycle, it’s Generative AI Taxonomy and Mitigation sections can be of use by FBOs and their members.