The DAP highlights Church windows are weak point in security of Catholic parishes, experts say, Public Funds for Church Security: Which States Are Stepping Up, and Joint Statement on Security Cooperation between the United States and Mexico. The DAP also has More Faith-Based Stories and Select All-Hazard Stories. 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.
Faith-Based Daily Awareness Post 26 August 2025
Faith-Based Security Headlines
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.
Email Phishing Scams Increasingly Target Churches
On August 13th, Rev. David Libbon of Good Shepherd Anglican Church in North Carolina and Pastor Chad Hall of Cartecay Baptist Church in Georgia each warned their congregations about deceptive phishing emails targeting churches. These messages, which appeared to come from pastors, asking for donations in the form of gift cards, an increasingly popular scamming tactic.
The FBI’s 2024 Internet Crime Report revealed that phishing or spoofing was the most frequently reported cybercrime, with 193,407 complaints, outpacing extortion by over double. While the number of phishing reports declined from previous years, the financial impact surged dramatically: losses were reported at $18.7 million in 2023, escalating to $70 million in 2024, although notably higher in 2022 at $160 million.
Cybersecurity experts point to churches and nonprofits as particularly vulnerable. Marcelo Barros noted a 58% global increase in phishing attacks between 2022 and 2023, attributing much of the threat’s effectiveness to its exploitation of human emotions like fear, empathy, and greed.
Analyst Comments: Phishing attacks against churches highlight a troubling reality: cybercriminals deliberately exploit trust-based communities where members may be less skeptical of unusual requests for leaders. HOWs are attractive targets not only because of their financial activity but also due to their reliance on volunteers and limited IT resources. HOWs should consider adapting layered defenses like spam filters, multi-factor authentication, and routine awareness training. It is important to note that no community is too small to be targeted, cybercriminals look for the path of least resistance.
Trump ‘very angry’ with Putin as Russia’s strikes on Ukraine continue despite peace push
President Trump voiced growing frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that “every conversation I have with him is a good conversation”, only to see “a bomb… loaded up into Kyiv”, underscoring how Moscow’s persistent nighttime strikes on Ukrainian cities continue despite U.S.-led attempts to broker peace. Meanwhile, behind the scenes of this conflict lies a high-stakes “sci-fi battle of machines”: Ukraine’s rapidly scaling drone production, hand-assembled quadcopter capable of reaching 6 km altitude and ambushing Russian surveillance craft and has become its most effective weapon. Yet, Ukraine risks losing the drone arms race as Russia fields increasingly lethal and hard-to-jam models.
Analyst Comments: The two stories together point to an important dual reality of the war in Ukraine. On one hand, high-level diplomacy continues but is hampered by the persistence of active strikes, which chances the confidence in negotiations and prolongs uncertainty. On the other hand, the battlefield is rapidly evolving, with drones and automated systems reshaping warfare in ways that demand agility and innovation. From a practical standpoint, this means that pace efforts and military realities are tightly interlinked, while leaders try to negotiate, the technological arms race continues to escalate on the ground.
Nerd Out Ep 61. The 2/3 of the Year Awards!
The Gate 15 Nerd Out! Security Panel Discussion, moderated by Dave Pounder, focuses on physical security topics including terrorism, extremism, hostile events, and other pertinent topics.
In this week’s nerd out, Dave goes through the annual (3rd of 4th – who knows) 2/3 of the year awards!
The categories are:
- MVP. Who or what is the security MVP to date. This can be a person, or a tactic.
- The Cobra (Sly Stallone) Award – “You’re the disease and I’m the cure”.
- The Dennis Green “they are who we thought they are” Award.
- The Aldus Snow (Get Him to The Greek) Award.
- Dumpster Fire Award.
- Scotty Doesn’t Know (EuroTrip) Award.
- Avengers Team Up Award
- Heath Ledger Joker Award
Information on other Gate 15 podcasts can be found at Podcast.
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Fast Facts: How Do Organizations Approach Intelligence on Different Types of Incidents?
More Security-focused Content
The FB-ISAO’s sponsor Gate 15 publishes a daily newsletter called the SUN. Curated from their open source intelligence collection process, the SUN informs leaders and analysts with the critical news of the day and provides a holistic look at the current global, all-hazards threat environment. Ahead of the daily news cycle, the SUN allows current situational awareness into the topics that will impact your organization. To sign-up for the SUN, send an email to [email protected].
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