Cyberterrorists Targeting First Responders

September 6, 2017

WASHINGTON — A U.S. intelligence community collaborative warned first responders in late July about escalating efforts to target them and their missions by cyberterrorists.

The Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team (JCAT), an alliance between the FBI, DHS and the National Counterterrorism Center, told first responders, “We assess with moderate confidence that cyber actors, including those who support violent extremism, are likely to continue targeting first responders on the World Wide Web including by distributing personally identifiable information (PII) for the purpose of soliciting attacks from willing sympathizers in the homeland, hacking government websites, or attacking 911 phone systems to hinder first responders’ ability to respond to crises...”