Faith-Based Daily Awareness Post 12 April 2024

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.

C-SPAN: FBI Director Testifies on FY 2025 Budget Request

C-Span provides video of FBI Director Wray’s testimony and reports:

FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of several “elevated” threats to U.S. national security, such as foreign terrorism, drug cartels, ransomware attacks, violent crime, and the Chinese government. He said, “As I look back over my career in law enforcement, I would be hard-pressed to think of a time where so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once. But that is the case as I sit here today. … this is by no means a time to let up or dial back.”

Additional Articles:

• FBI fears ‘coordinated attack’ on US homeland
• FBI chief warns of “coordinated attack” threat to U.S. after Russia shooting
• FBI ‘concerned’ terrorists are using ‘mafia-like tactics’ to plan coordinated attacks on US soil

Analyst Comments:

FB-ISAO’s Daily Awareness Post 11 April 2024 previewed director Wray’s testimony.

Additionally, FB-ISAO has highlighted aspects of the current threat environment:

• FB-ISAO Daily Awareness Post 8 April 2024highlighted the potential terror threat at gatherings.
• The Daily Awareness Post 9 April 2024 highlighted how already one ISIS inspired individual planned to attack churches.

Faith-Based Organizations should consider reviewing FB-ISAO’s Daily Awareness Posts on 27 March 2024 and 25 March 2024 which provide a variety of resources to protect soft targets and crowded places from lone offenders and other threats.

FBI PSA: Cyber Criminals Target Victims Using Social Engineering Techniques

From the FBI PSA:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is issuing this announcement to inform individuals and businesses about social engineering techniques used by cybercriminals to gain access to financial, corporate, and network accounts. As described in detail below, recently observed social engineering techniques used by cybercriminals to target victims include:

1. impersonating employees,
2. subscriber identity module (SIM) swap attacks,
3. call forwarding and simultaneous ring; and,
4. phishing

Obtaining personal information through these techniques gives cybercriminals the ability to invade a victim’s network, steal victim data, and extort victims by threatening to release private data.

The PSA details the four social engineering techniques, provides tips on protecting individuals and companies, victim reporting, and additional information. The PSA also provides a link to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

Analyst Comments:

This FBI PSA provides good information for protecting Faith-Based Organizations from an aspect of the ever-evolving threat of cyber criminals.

Other Faith-Based Item of Interest

Russia thwarts planned terrorist attack on Moscow Synagogue

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB),  successfully averted a potentially devastating terrorist attack aimed at a Moscow synagogue. According to the FSB’s public relations center, the assailant, originating from one of the Central Asian countries, intended to carry out the attack during a period of significant congregation at the religious Jewish institution. The Jerusalem Post has reached out to the Moscow Jewish community, which affirmed the report. 

Firebombed church files lawsuit against suspect, White Lives Matter group members

The Community Church of Chesterland is suing Aimenn D. Penny, 20, who was arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail at the church on March 25, 2023, because the church had planned to host a drag-related reading hour for all ages the following weekend.