Nothing to hide, but a lot to protect

An innocent man is killed during a "swatting" incident because he had a rare Twitter handle. How could this happen?

"I didn't understand how this happened,” said Mark Herring’s daughter. Her father was killed in April of 2020 under tragic circumstances. Police received an anonymous tip that a woman had been fatally shot and that pipe bombs were rigged to explode once police officers arrived – a term known as “swatting”.

None of what the caller reported to the police was true, and Mark Herring never saw it coming when the police arrived with guns drawn late on an otherwise quiet and uneventful evening in Sumner County, Tennessee.

After the shock of seeing the flashing lights and drawn guns, Herring died of a massive heart attack.

What led to this swatting event?

Herring was the owner of the Twitter handle @Tennessee since he joined the social media platform in 2007. With a valuable handle like that, he was approached by many parties over the years offering him up to thousands of dollars if he would sell it to them so they could monetize it. Many were friendly and legitimate – others were not.

Two minors conspired to report the false murder and threat to the police, resulting in Herring’s death. Beginning with the account information tied to Herring’s @Tennessee Twitter account, the minors used publicly available information about Herring’s email address and phone number where they were able to send harassing messages.

Unless you do something about it, your sensitive personal data is already exposed.

When Herring refused to sell his handle, the conspirators used his publicly available home address to send the police right to his doorstep.

Could this happen to you?

You never know when you could accidentally cut someone off in traffic who has the resources and ability to track down your name, phone number, and home address using your license plate which is registered using that information.

It could be that you own land that is registered in your name, and someone will stop at nothing to buy it from you.

It might just be that you leave a seemingly harmless post or comment on social media that is read by some unhinged person who takes offense to it and chooses you as their target.

While any of these examples may be unlikely to ever materialize, just like Mark Herring, are you willing to take the chance by leaving your personal information exposed?

How could this have been prevented?

Herring was supposedly very outspoken about practicing internet safety, but the cyber criminals still managed to find and misuse his personal information.

Unless you do something about it, your sensitive personal data is already exposed.

Exposed data online means risk to your brand, reputation, finances, physical safety, or family.

Signature Management Unit can leverage our unique intelligence and special operations experience to fight hidden risk on your behalf. We simulate cyber adversaries, target you like criminals would, and ensure your digital security and privacy are locked down.

Signature Management Unit applies Open Source Intelligence techniques and special operations targeting methodologies to locate your sensitive data and discreetly remove it in a timely manner. We also conduct follow-ups to ensure the data remains unavailable to exploitation by nefarious actors.

Don’t wait, secure your digital realm with us now.