Swatters used Ring cameras to livestream attacks, taunt police, prosecutors say

Federal prosecutors have charged two men with taking part in a spree of swatting attacks against more than a dozen owners of compromised Ring home security cameras.

According to an indictment filed Friday in the Central District of California, the two men gained access to 12 Ring cameras after compromising the Yahoo Mail accounts of the owners. In a single week starting on November 7, 2020, the men placed hoax emergency calls to the local police departments of each owner that were intended to draw an armed response.

On November 8, local police in West Covina, California, received an emergency call purporting to come from a minor child reporting that her parents had been drinking and shooting guns. Nelson accessed the residence's Ring doorbell and used it to threaten and intimidate the police. The indictment states that the men helped carry out 11 similar swatting incidents in the same week.

Two men and a third person are alleged to have obtained the login credentials of Yahoo accounts and then used them to find out if the owners of their Ring accounts had a doorbell camera. The account holders' names and other information would be gathered by the men. The defendants placed the hoax calls and waited for the police to respond.

Nelson and McCarty would transmit audio and video from the Ring devices to their social media accounts. The defendants would use Ring devices to insult the police officers and victims.

It is not known how the Yahoo account credentials were obtained.

In November, an indictment was filed in the District of Arizona that accused McCarty of being involved in swatting attacks.

Nelson was already in jail in Kentucky when the indictment was returned. The man who used the online name Aspertaine was arrested last week.

The men are accused of conspiring to access computers without permission. Nelson was charged with two counts of unauthorized access to a computer and two counts of identity theft. The maximum penalty for both men is 5 years in prison. Nelson could face at least seven years in prison on the remaining charges.

The two men have yet to enter a plea.

The importance of securing email and home security accounts is underscored by the incident. People should use multifactorAuthentication whenever possible