What do a healthcare CEO, online streamer/influencer, and tech company co-founder have in common? Brian Thompson, Kaitlyn Siragusa (aka Amouranth), and David Balland were all recent victims of violent, targeted attacks due to their perceived status symbols and wealth. Unfortunately, their tragic experiences underscore a broader trend...public prominence can invite real-world violence. During times of civil unrest, whether the result of socioeconomic struggles and/or political turmoil, these trends are likely to continue or worse, escalate.
Additionally, malicious actors were able to weaponize the public availability of personal information (e.g. locations such as travel or home address) against them. Changes in privacy laws and policies as well as the ever increasing number of data breaches also underscore a broader trend...personal information is neither protected enough nor private anymore. Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is the analytic tradecraft of choice for many malicious actors and will enable attacks for years to come.
Unfortunately, a lack of operational security (OPSEC) by each of these victims further exacerbated their risks here, which in large was due to a lack of training and awareness. Most people go about their day and think that they'll never be a target. First mistake. Other mistakes:
- Brian Thompson lacked overall awareness, failing to consider what's normal vs. abnormal from the following factors: physical environment, geolocation/position, and patterns of movement as well as time of day.
- Amouranth demonstrated poor OPSEC by flashing a screenshot of her crypto wallet balance during a live stream. Of her 6.1+ million followers, there are a likely a few bad actors. Four of them, aged 16-19, targeted her directly as a result of this.
- David Balland also lacked overall awareness, failing to consider a mismatch between his physical/home security and the heightened risks associated with those in his particular industry.
At Prae, our unique expertise and experiences allow you to see what personal information malicious actors can collect and weaponize against you. Whether you're a company looking to protect your VIP employees or a family office looking to protect your assets, let us help YOU praeview your risk, praedict threats, and praevent damage.