How to Prevent Swatting: Warning Signs, Impacts, and Action Plans
Swatting is a hoax call to emergency services that sends armed police to a specific person's home or office. The caller makes up a believable emergency, like a hostage situation, a shooting, or a bomb, and officers show up ready for the worst.
I talk with security leads, nonprofit staff, and executives about this often, and I recently gave a briefing on how these attacks start and how to get ahead of them. Here's what I shared:
-> NGO-ISAC members can see the full presentation here.
How big is the swatting problem?
An estimated 20,000 swatting incidents have targeted Americans since the early 2000s, according to data from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
Swatting started in gaming culture, with people targeting rivals and streamers at home. Today attackers go after schools, campuses, offices, and the homes of ordinary people doing public-facing work.
The stakes can be life and death. In 2017, a Wichita, Kansas officer shot and killed 28-year-old Andrew Finch after a swatter sent a tactical team to his door over a $1.50 video game dispute.
How is a swatting attack executed?
An attacker needs three things: an address, a believable story, and a reason. Intimidation, revenge, and spectacle top the list of motives.
Attackers also hunt for phone numbers in order to spoof caller ID so the call looks like it came from the victim or someone who lives in the victim's home, which makes dispatchers far more likely to believe it. Once the call goes through, police have a duty to respond.
Where is the data found to fuel a swatting attack?
Most of it sits in plain sight. Attackers search online across search engines, social media, data brokers and AI models.
AI makes the search faster
You don't need hacking skills to find someone anymore. A chatbot will do the legwork:
ChatGPT o3 placed photos within about a mile of where someone took them in 60% of test cases, using only what showed up in the image.
Large language models inferred personal details like location, income, and sex from ordinary Reddit posts with up to 85% accuracy.
Grok returned accurate, current home addresses for 10 of 33 private individuals when reporters typed in a name and the word “address”.
What is the impact of swatting on people and organizations?
A swatting call never lands on just one person. Here's who it reaches:
Family. Everyone at the address faces the armed response, kids included.
Colleagues and students. Attackers target offices and campuses too. Staff pages hand them a map of who works with the person they're after.
Employers. The organization takes on duty of care for its people, plus disruption to operations and a hit to reputation and donor trust.
The harm doesn't end when police leave. Students who live through a hoax lockdown experience trauma close to that of a real one, because nobody in the room knows it's fake.
What does an organization owe its people?
If someone becomes a target because of the work they do for you, the organization shares responsibility for their safety. That goes double for nonprofits, clinics, and advocacy groups, where staff and volunteers often take public stands. Here are some questions to discuss with your leadership and legal counsel:
What do we owe staff who get targeted because of their work?
What staff information do we publish, and does it need to be public?
Do our policies cover outsiders using AI to profile our people?
Could we show the steps we took if something happened?
Do we receive safety or security grants, or work with partners who fund security?
What does your organization do today when a staff member gets targeted? If there’s no go-to plan documented, you have work to do.
How can people and organizations prevent swatting?
The best defense starts long before anyone picks up a phone. You want to know who's exposed, cut off the data attackers rely on, and have a plan ready.
For high-risk individuals
Scrub your address and phone number from data broker and people-search sites, then keep monitoring, because the listings come back.
Mask your location data. Look into your state's Safe at Home or address confidentiality program, a PO box (some states allow it on official records), a virtual mailbox, and options from your phone carrier.
Talk to your family. Their posts, tagged photos, and public accounts can point straight to your door.
Get to know your county assessor. Some counties will shield property records for people at risk.
Create noise. Profiles on trusted platforms with limited details can push real data further down search results.
For organizations
Look past the figureheads. Flag anyone active on social media, named or described in legal documents, or photographed in public, not just executives.
Write a crisis plan for the organization and key people. Tie it to building codes, home security, and what family and friends share.
Look for funding. Some safety and security grants cover home security for your most at-risk people.
Name a point person. Give staff one internal contact, a clear escalation path, and secure ways to communicate.
Decide on police outreach. Working with law enforcement ahead of time helps some groups and backfires for others. Match it to your risk model.
What should you do before, during, and after a swatting incident?
Before: watch for warning signs
Swatting usually builds over days or weeks, so these signals deserve a closer look:
Online | Offline |
|---|---|
Harassing social media or forum posts | Food or packages you never ordered |
People asking for your address or family details | Photos of your home, office, or family in the mail |
Your address or phone number posted publicly | Wellness checks nobody asked for |
Accounts impersonating you | Strangers walking by often or hanging around outside |
Figure out now who in your organization would spot these first. Then make sure that person knows who to tell.
During: de-escalate
Your only goal in the moment is getting everyone through it safely.
Follow every instruction.
Keep your hands visible and empty.
Don't make sudden movements.
Once things settle, tell the officers you believe the call was a hoax and that people have targeted you online.
After: the first 72 hours
Document. Write down times, officer names, and the incident number.
Report. Contact victim services, a lawyer, or the FBI at tips.fbi.gov. Share details with peer organizations or any information-sharing group you belong to, so they can watch for the same threat. Agree ahead of time on how you handle privacy and possible backlash.
Notify. Loop in family, your employer's security team, and legal and HR contacts.
Monitor. Watch for fake accounts, repeat attacks, doxxing, and trolling. Ask a security buddy to handle this so the target gets a break from the hostility.
Support. Offer counseling, time off, or temporary housing.
Want to know how exposed your team is? Talk to Kanary about removing personal data from the sites attackers use.
Swatting FAQ
What is swatting? Swatting is a fake emergency call that sends armed police to someone's home or workplace. Attackers use it to intimidate, retaliate, or put on a show.
How common is swatting? The ADL estimated about 1,000 U.S. incidents a year as of 2019, and U.S. K-12 schools alone saw 728 in the 2023–24 school year.
How do swatters find someone's address? They pull it from data brokers, people-search sites, breach dumps, public records, staff pages, and social media. AI chatbots now speed up the search.
What should I do if police show up because of a swatting call? Follow every instruction, keep your hands visible and empty, and avoid sudden movements. Once you're safe, tell officers you believe the call was a hoax.
Where do I report a swatting attack? Report it to the FBI at tips.fbi.gov, and share details with peer organizations so others can watch for the same threat.
How can I lower my risk of getting swatted? Remove your home address and phone number from public sites, and limit what your organization publishes about staff.
