Faith-Based Daily Awareness Post 28 July 2023

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.

ADL Report

ADL Report (shared in FB-ISAO Slack): The ADL Center on Extremism has issued the following Community Alert:

• Overview: Since July 22, several apparent swatting incidents have occurred at synagogues and ADL offices across the country, including those in California, Michigan, New York and Denver.
• Swatting is the deliberate and malicious act of reporting a false crime or emergency to evoke an aggressive response from law enforcement, sending officers to a target’s home or work to harass and intimidate them. Each of these incidents involved the threat of gun violence, either an act of suicide or an attack targeting other people. While local law enforcement did reach out, none of the incidents resulted in a full-scale police response.
• At this time, the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) believes that at least some of these incidents are connected and has shared that intelligence with law enforcement. However, COE does not believe there to be a credible physical threat against Jewish institutions at this time. ADL is continuing to monitor social media platforms and work with law enforcement to address this issue.

Analyst Comment:

Whether a hostile event is real or due to swatting, current law enforcement procedures call for a rapid and forceful response. An Incident Response Plan could prove to be useful regardless of what type of hostile event may occur. https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Incident-Response-Plan-Basics_508c.pdf

Recently an FB-ISAO member organization was the victim a swatting incident. On 08 August, there will be a review of that incident during FB-ISAO’s 2023 Educational Series: A Culture of Security. Representatives from the member organization will be on hand to discuss how the swatting incident unfolded, what it was like in the moment, what was learned from the incident itself, the subsequent response, and other takeaways. The session is open to members of FB-ISAO. Link to the membership page: https://faithbased-isao.org/membership/