Did ISIS Sympathizers Create Fake Facebook Page for U.S. Cop? What could this mean for our military using social media?

MSgt Curtis Ellis — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 09:38:06 -0400

"An unknown individual used a retired Colorado state trooper's identity to set up a fake Facebook account and friend both real cops and apparent ISIS sympathizers, officials revealed in a recent internal bulletin.
"[We assess] with high confidence that it was designed under false pretenses to gather information regarding law enforcement members," said the bulletin from the Colorado Information Analysis Center, a division of the state's Department of Public Safety.
Authorities said the account was created Oct. 12, and CIAC contacted the retired trooper the next day. He said he was unaware of the account.
Some of the individuals who accepted friend requests from the account were current law enforcement officers. Others "appear to be sympathizers of [ISIS]," said the bulletin. "Some individuals are possibly members with radical Islamic ideology and anti-Semitic beliefs who have gruesome pictures of beheadings and killings on this social media site." The bulletin showed some of the photos posted by the apparent jihadis, and warned police officers that terrorists might try to harvest their personal information via social media in order to launch an attack.
"International terrorist organizations and criminal domestic groups continue to violently target law enforcement and military members in the United States," the bulletin said. "They seek to exploit their personal information on social media."
CIAC reminded officers to be careful with their social media and with "whom they allow into their digital community. Please review the requester's entire profile and avoid relying on mutual friends to assess the legitimacy of the requestor."
Capt. J.P. Burt, director of CIAC, told NBC News that the incident was both instructive and disconcerting.
"Luckily, we caught it [the fake account] very early, but it's scary," said Burt, who thinks the intrusion was a sign of broader efforts to exploit "gaps and weaknesses" among law enforcement and the military.
Burt would not identify the victim, elaborate on who could be responsible or say whether the account was created in the U.S. But he said that amid rapid changes in technology, the intrusion served as a warning to everyone from cops to the public at large not to "take friend requests or e-mail at face value."
"We as a society have to be responsible and not believe everything we see on the Internet," Burt said. "You have to vet it."
The FBI would not comment on the fake Facebook page, but a spokesperson said the page was the kind of threat the FBI usually investigates.
A senior U.S. intelligence official said "Facebook Phishing" is a tactic that had previously been employed by terror groups, but had not yet been used by ISIS.
Earlier this month, federal prosecutors charged a hacker living in Malaysia with giving ISIS more than a thousand names of Americans, including diplomats and local government officials, for a kill list. Ardit Ferizi, originally from Kosovo, had culled the names from 100,000 identities stolen from the Phoenix server of an unnamed U.S. retailer.

Did ISIS Sympathizers Create Fake Facebook Page for Colorado Cop?

Authorities believe the account was created to lure in current law enforcement officers and collect their personal information.

Response by SPC Elijah J. Henry, MBA made Oct 23 at 2015 10:13 AM

SPC Elijah J. Henry, MBA — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:13:42 -0400

This kind of thing is why -- in spite of the OPSEC dangers of social media -- we are advised not to eschew social media.

Response by SSG Warren Swan made Oct 23 at 2015 3:36 PM

SSG Warren Swan — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 15:36:40 -0400

MSgt, nothing. I say this because as long as folks post everything they do, everywhere they go, everything they eat, and buy online, it's not going to take a lot of investigative work to make a copy profile and say you're that person now. FB has had issues with that for the longest. I've had a FB buddy send a notice to her friends to deny any friend requests from her because it was from a hacked page claiming to be her. She told us things only we'd know so we knew who we were talking to. Vigilance and the desire NOT to post your entire life on any social media site is the only way to go. I'm starting to see LinkedIn as damn near as bad. Before I only linked with those I knew personally. Now I get requests from people all over the world claiming to be "recruiters in IT". I also don't have FB on my phone so that the "instant" location posts don't get done. If I want you to know where I am, I'd tell you personally over the phone and thank goodness RP doesn't do this.